We were talking one day, and I said, “They never tell you what happens when somebody gets hit in the face by a steel-tipped lance,” and she said, "Then you do it.” So I did.  Started in Philadelphia, in the Summer of 1975, before we went back to Scotland, and picked up again in East Stroudsburg, after I took early retirement from teaching at ESU in December 2000, at last, initially it was just meant to sketch in the picture of the immediate context  surrounding a serious blow to the face by a real weapon, since there’s so much fantasy about what it might have been like to engage in mounted combat in the 14th century, when this story takes place, and so little thought about the real effect on a person in tournament armour of taking a hit in the face from a telephone pole carried at high speed by a man on a large horse trained for combat. The logic of the encounter of course carried the story forward, past the initial meeting, and altho the story was set aside - after the first few chapters had been written - for a period of about twenty-five years, when it was picked up again nothing much had changed, and there was still more fantasy than horror about this kind of thing still going around. I thought I might try the waters with a letter of inquiry and a couple of sample chapters to a publisher, but experienced friends smiled gently, and so I thought better of that idea, and instead went ahead with the story to its possible conclusion in a given case. The story
has been read and critiqued by some knowledgeable friends, who know who they are. To save them from having to defend the results of my interpretation of their attempts to help, I have kept their names off the page. However, for suggesting that I continue past the few pages she had seen, I would like to thank Candace Robb, and for suggesting that I  continue even although she had not seen any of the pages, Donna-Lane Nelson.  For backing up their encouragement, I would also like to thank Paul Pines, my oldest friend in America, without whom I would never have seen the Za Zen Coffeehouse, on Hemenway Street, just off the Fenway, in Boston, 1959. Here’s to Fat Freddy, aka Efraim Googol, the ex-Israeli fighter pilot who, with his partner Barry Mirkin - the grizzled seventeen-year-old - provided an espresso haven for young poets and artists, too young to really be Beats, too old to really be hippies. Wherever you are now – the best of good luck to all of you.

Here’s the story, then - John
john.mclaughlin4@verizon.net

Chapter One, The Gypsy Knights: A Meeting at a Tournament

           
            Seen as by a circling hawk, the walled cathedral town of Orleans spread for miles along the banks of the River Loire, its wood-and-clay buildings higgledy-piggledy strewn in random fashion, streets narrow and winding, roofs in places almost touching one another across narrow alleys.  Its obvious focus was the steepled cathedral building occupying its cleared central space, where the craftsmen’s booths and butcher shops lined the square, on a market day in the summer of 1365, Anno Domini.

            The booths and shops were deserted on this day, however, as a great fairground spread for miles along the banks of the river, outside the walls of the town, raising a great cloud of dust and noise from the men and horses moving to and fro among the tents and in the tournament grounds.

            In one of the tent-alleys near the river, a silken forked banneret with two black arrows slashed diagonally across a gold escutcheon, the heraldic sign for Sir Alain de York, knight of England and France, stretched and flapped above a young boy, sitting guard on a camp stool and watching, through the jingling of harness, the hoarse cries and the dusty clouds they raised, the passing show of horses and knights from half a dozen nations. Here, belted warriors of the Gascon border country came trotting past, pikes bobbing in line. There marched some of the Swiss company who had come up from Italy and were now on their way to Spain. Here pranced a great war-horse, its high saddle-bow empty but long dress-armour skirts trailing in the dust, curvetting its way along between the tents, led by a lad perhaps a little older than the watching boy, who lost sight of it for a moment, behind a column of passing knights, lances branching aloft. Then the war-horse re-appeared, heading directly for him, its apparent master coolly leading it across the road, straight to his tent.

            “Sir Alain de York?” he asked, reining in his giant charge, before the low white fence encircling the tent.

            “His -- his page, and it please your honour,” the boy hurriedly acknowledged, getting to his feet, knocking over the camp-stool behind him, turning to right it.

            His new companion eyed him up and down. “I too,” he said. “But only as of this day.” The boys looked at one another, measuring their respective lengths.

            “And how long have you been in the fair retinue of Sir Alain?” the newcomer asked. The younger lad stuttered for a moment, “Two years it is, now, and four more yet to go.  My name is Rolf....”

            “Twelve, are you, “ remarked his friend. “I myself am fourteen, last Michaelmas.” He stepped over the low fence, and bent to tie the great horse to it. Sitting on the fence, he crossed one pointed toe over the other knee, and hugged his knee smugly.

            But a trumpet sounded, down the road, over the heads of the crowd, above the clanging of the armourers,  and both boys sprang to their feet to see the regal show, as a knight in full tournament armour, high in the saddle above the throng, came prancing down the road, the crowd parting to let him and the trumpeters through.

            His tournament armour was white, with scarlet piping around the visor and breastplate, and a black horsehair plume waved high in the air over his peaked helmet, trailing its thick tail down along his backplate.  The surcoat, gold scutcheon slashed diagonally by two black arrows, proclaimed his name to the spectators. “Sir Alain! Sir Alain de York!” The cry went up, and the cheers for the champion of that day’s jousting. The young knight on the prancing steed had unseated six men in this one day, beating four of them to the ground afterwards, fighting on foot with blunted mace and sword. His battered shield was slung carelessly down along his left leg, the sun flashing from the dents and long scratches which marred its silvered surface. His helmet was thrown open, smiling face, blonde-moustached, visible through the visor, acknowledging the applause of the parting throng. The master of the two pages, Sir Alain’s younger cousin and body-squire, Brian de Lyons, sprang from his horse behind Sir Alain, and waved the boys to attention in front of the tent. “Sharp about it -- get this armour off, you pair of louts!” he snapped, reaching up to take Sir Alain’s long shield in his own hands. He propped it on its stand next to the tent-flap, and helped his master dismount, slowly, from the giant charger. “Another prize here, Sir Alain -- “ he jerked his head towards the side of the tent, to the horse hitched to the low fence -- “ the lad brought her here himself, minutes ago.” He had taken in the new page and his errand at a glance.

            “The booty grows by the hour,” Sir Alain laughed.

            “Not wealth, but glory, my lord, “ answered  Brian, bowing his head.

            “Both, “ said the young knight, dropping his arm carelessly across his friend’s shoulder. “We have no need of all these horses and body-armour -- their masters will be by soon enough to redeem them, be sure! Let us eek celebrate, like victors.”

            Brian shrugged his arm off, slightly, and said in a low voice, “Behind you, Alain!”

            Sir Alain turned, to see the new page kneeling to him. “I am Jehan, son of Jacques de Vitrier, son of --”

            Sir Alain cut him off with a wave of his still-gauntleted hand. “Your pedigree later. First the armour.” He extended his still-gauntleted hand, and the boy bent his lips to it, then drew the iron gauntlet off. The other page, Rolf,  had the other gauntlet off already, and was kneeling to unfasten the whorled knee-pieces, so that the greaves and cuisses,  covering thigh and shin,  could be taken off separately, the laces untied and the heavy silver sabatouns slipped off Sir Alain’s aching feet.

            “Ahh,” sighed Sir Alain. “You know the armour, lads!” The pages bowed, and hurried around behind their lord, to unfasten the round silver knobs at his elbows, so as to let him slide the hinged arm-pieces off his velvet-padded arms, one working on the left, the other on the right, leaving the squire to unbuckle the great helmet and lift it forward and off over their lord’s head. Brian put it carefully on its frame, on the right-hand side of the tent-flap, beside the long shield on the left,  as Jehan and Rolf unclipped breast and backplates, for Brian to lift carefully off and hand to Jehan, still hinged in one piece at the top. The new page staggered under the sudden weight, and sat down clumsily under it, head disappearing inside the chest cavity, hands holding the arm-holes, and a howl of laughter went up from the three others.

            “Got you, lad!” Brian cried, as Rolf stepped in to lift the great cup of  armour off Jehan, who rolled to the side, face flushed, the men’s laughter ringing in his ears. Rolf nodded thanks to Brian for putting the gypsy in his place, and heaved the hinged breastplate on to its base beside the pedestaled helmet.

            Greaves, cuisses, arm-pieces and sabatouns were lined up along the tent wall, as Brian stripped the steaming horse and draped its saddle over the waiting frame, together with the spread cloths which had hung along the courser’s sides. The horse’s body armour was stacked along the side-fence also, face-armour and chest-piece on top of withers and back panels. Bridle and tasseled reins were hung on the corner posts, and the trophies of Sir Alain’s conquests, the six tassels from the broken lances of his opponents, rinsed of dust and draped from the flag-pole to dry. Jehan followed Rolf faithfully, watching how the page arranged the tiny holding, trying to keep out of the way of Brian, who finally gave him a cuff on the side of the head and a thick-bristled brush, telling him to curry the horses, slowly, from head to tail.

            By the time Jehan had expertly finished this task, dusk had fallen, the fires and lanterns of the encampment springing to life as day left and night crept in. Sir Alain, sluiced off by Brian behind the tent, had already dined, and was sprawled in a camp-chair at the tent-opening, Brian on another chair  opposite. Rolf was still scurrying around, cleaning up, having set aside food and drink for Jehan, who finally put aside the horse-brushes and went to join the others.

            “The other horses?” Brian asked over his shoulder.

            “Curried and blanketed also, my lord,” answered Rolf. 

            “So then, “ said Sir Alain, throwing one leg, in laced-up soft boot, over the side of his chair, “Tell us, Jehan, about you and your horse.”

            “I come from Sir Arturo du Guize,” Jehan answered, “he of the black boar crest, from this morning.” Sir Alain nodded, remembering.

            “The Russian, I believe?” he asked, interested.

            “Italian, my lord,” Brian intervened.” “North of Turin, near the border with the Slavs, sire.”

            “His horse is yours, as is our custom, my lord,” said Jehan. Sir Alain lifted a dangerous eyebrow.

            “Son of...?” Jehan looked down. “Son of?” Sir Alain repeated the question. There was iron in his voice. Brian pointedly eased his dagger around on his hip. Rolf paused in the shadow, waiting.

            “Canst not remember, lad?” Alain asked gently, coaxingly. “Shalt tell thee, then?” Jehan nodded, dumbly. “Thou art a gypsy, lad, and no Frenchman -- nor English neither, I’ll be bound.” Jehan nodded, and Sir Alain nodded also, satisfied.

            Rolf, behind Brian’s stool, eyed the strange foreigner. He’d guessed, of course. The long, black hair, the small gold earring hidden in those flowing locks, the strange, curled dagger, the tight doublet with no sleeves, the bagged shirt. “Speak, lad,” Sir Alain said, gently. “And we had meant to harm thee, had done so ere now.” Jehan looked quickly from one man to the other, considering.  The strange speech into which they had fallen  scared him a little, but he decided that the truth, for once, was the best course.

            “I was taken into Sir Arturo’s retinue after the Russian campaign, when his men destroyed the village that I was born in. The camp, “he quickly amended. “I have been his page since then, and I -- I wished to come to you after you defeated him this morning.”

            Brian glanced at Sir Alain, and said smoothly, “ Then page you may well call yourself here also, lad, and shall Rolf teach you our ways, half-French, half-English, as is our custom. You accept?” Jehan nodded thankfully, and sat down on the ground on the other side of the tent-flap, in the shadow.

            “Up!” snapped Brian, and Jehan sprang back to his feet. “Respect doth tell thee, my lad, to stand on thy feet whilst thy lord be seated.” Jehan stepped back against the tent, and Rolf rescued him with a tap on the elbow, and they went behind the tent, leaving Sir Alain and Brian smiling at one another.

            Rolf shook his head dolefully. “Jehan,” he said, “ only if you learn the ways of the true page will you thrive here. Sir Alain and Brian, who is his body squire from childhood, be friends of old, and so may treat one another as lords, which Brian will be also, come dubbing as knight, but such as you -- and I -- must learn the lines, if we know them not from birth.”

            Jehan narrowed his eyes. “You also,” he said,” have changed your speech, Rolf.  Is that too your ways?”

            Rolf smiled. “When none others be around -- or when we wish our speech to be marked well -- when we wish that others may not with ease our speech follow -- then do we thus, as ye do note.” He sat on the ground, and motioned Jehan to do likewise. “This tourney will last another two more days.  The great Breton knight Sir Bertrand du Gueschlin will pass through here, on his way to Bordeaux and Spain, tomorrow, and if the fighting here is of interest, then he will stop to see the combats. Sir Alain, a third son, and thus a misfortune at home -- as a lord, he may not work, except at trades of war, and as a lord he requires support -- is now on notice to prove his mettle to Sir Bertrand du Gueschlin that he would be a worthy addition to the free companies that follow the war.”

            “Then that explains also my own lord -- ex-lord -- Sir Arturo du Guize, leaving the Russian wars for this of France and, mayhap, Spain. The bear has little of reward next to the leopard of France -- “ 

            “--Or the red lions of Wales -- and of Scotland!” laughed Rolf, nodding.

            Jehan looked at him. “You are then one of those border warriors?”

            Rolf flushed. “On my father’s side only. Thence the name. We go back to the days before the French first landed in England -- before the Germans also. We are a Saxon people, neither Jute nor Anglish --”

            Jehan cut him off. “And my people also -- the Romany -- go back in both Europe and Asia. Some there be that say we come from magic Egypt, in Africa, but there be some who trace us to the warriors of India, or the sages of Babylon --”

            “ -- or to the slaves of China -- or the jinns of Persia?” Rolf cut in. “I have heard tell of the Romany people -- both tinkers and horse-dealers, magicians with a pack of cards, strangers to hall and castle, church and garden alike!”

            Both boys were on their feet, poised tensely, when Brian came around the corner of the tent. He stood there, one hand on the hilt of his dagger. “If you two barons have finished with your horrendous wars, perhaps you might fetch some wine for Sir Alain? And for yourselves also.” A silver coin arced through the air, and Jehan caught it and fled, followed by Rolf, laughing again. Brian shook his head, and went back to Sir Alain. “Your changeling has sharp little teeth,” he said, sinking to the ground and taking up the neglected musical instrument. Sir Alain grinned.

            “All the better to bite with,” he said. “Rolf shows the spirit you’d expect of such a mother. She was a woman of fire.”

            Brian paused in his plucking of the dulcimer. “You knew her, then?”

            “Only as a very young lad - not so much older than you.. The child is now twelve winters old, after all, and she died when he was still a babe in arms. Let me count.” He picked off the years on his fingers, lips moving. “Yes -- she would have been -- sixteen years, I think. When he was born, that is. Old Rolf was dried in the wind by then, of course.”

            “His father? You never saw him, did you?” Brian had put down his dulcimer. In all their time together, they had never discussed Rolf’s parents before, as if it were a wall that only now, across the water, in France, they could go beyond.

            “Only in pieces,” Alain laughed ruefully. “You can see the point of killing a rebel, but sending him in pieces all around, to villages that never heard of him, might be as much excitement as deterrent. We had gone north ourselves, to Berwick, for the Scottish troubles, with the King and Prince Edward himself, and might have heard no more of him but for the messenger from the high courts with the right leg in a bag.”

            “And, of course, the girl he left behind. That would have been the Lady Bianca had she lived.”

             “Yes, that was indeed the plan of my father,” Alain acknowledged. “But of course after, and when she was discovered with child, it was obviously impossible.”

            “But -- I never knew, we were in Guyenne, ourselves, since before that Edward the First that was, and earlier -- ” Brian said, brushing aside his own family history. “What were you doing in England yourselves?”

            “Oh, a call to homage, by our liege lord Edward. As his vassals, French born though we are, we had to take ship across the Channel at his call, to aid in keeping the Scots, and later the Welsh, back.”

            “It’s a pity King Edward could not have had the same fealty from some of his English barons,” Brian said reflectively. “Mayhap then the Lady Bianca would not have conceived a love for the wild lands as she did. Or for its wild men, like Rolf the Red. The Red Dragon, forsooth!”

            Sir Alain shook his head definitively, asserting the wisdom of age over his younger cousin. “No, Brian. There be too many ‘nots’ and ‘nevers’ and ‘maybes’ in what you say. Fealty to the liege is a mark, not for the courts and public palaces only -- it is a matter of honor, of the heart. Lacking that, you lack all.” He was quoting  his father, old Sir Nigel, by now, as Brian well knew. “We paid homage as we must, as our sworn duty of knight-hood.  All else that followed -- it came from the will of God Almighty, and must be borne -- even down to my page, your boon, who had been killed as a babe, as soon as its mother was cold, but that you pleaded for its life -- and you, what, but six years old yourself?”

            “True shot -- well hit,” Brian winced. “Giving me his life, but of course. How could he do other than follow when we left the domain of St Aliquis to seek our fortune? I had spent long enough as page to your father -- as harsh an uncle as any nephew could ever wish for! And Guyenne called. Not to speak of Marseilles, and then Turin, and now Orleans - and thence Bordeaux!”

            They started laughing at memories of their road together -- “Turin!” -- and the laughter broke out of them, and they howled, bending over, thumping the grass in delight. The two younger boys found them still laughing, wiping the tears from their eyes, when they came back with the wine-skins, two large and two smaller. Jehan had the stopper in the larger bag, over his shoulder, half-loose, and Brian swiped weakly at him, still laughing. “You little thief! That’s my wine!” Jehan dropped the wineskins on the ground and stepped back warily. This was a new mood, and he was poised for flight.

            But Sir Alain and his body-squire, grinning and wiping their eyes, motioned the boys to sit down, the flasks were opened, and they sprawled in front of the tent-flaps, listening to Brian plucking a lazy tune on the dulcimer, Sir Alain humming an accompaniment, between swigs from the wine-flasks. The encampment spread out around them for miles, its lamps flickering low, the stillness broken only rarely now by the snort or trampling of a late arrival, a burst of oaths from a tent where a dice game was in progress, a faint cheer from the minstrel gallery in the distance, where the crowd was egging on an insult-contest, now reaching some kind of climax in a burst of fading applause that died slowly away as the king-minstrel was carried off on triumphant shoulders to the still-open tavern tents. The stars hung, thick and luminous, in the warm Summer night, as the warriors slept.

End of Chapter I, The Gypsy Knights.

Chapter Two: Treachery in the Lists.

 
            Rolf, tending the breakfast fire, was ignoring  Jehan, who was busy with the horse-tackle, and singing louder now, outside the tent-flap. “Let us stoke up the fires -- in the forts of Hungary-y!”

            There was a rustling inside the tent, then a voice, still muffled in the bed-clothes: “Curse you, Rolf!” Then more rustling, as Sir Alain and Brian got up, putting on their morning-clothes, and came out of the tent, blinking in the early morning sun. Brian had on tights, in the new style, one leg red and the other blue, still lacing them to his belt.  He looked a little awkward in them; there was not much room to move in the tight garments, worn more for show than for comfort. Still, he dropped his blanket and stepped up to the tub the two pages had filled with water from upstream of the encampment, sluicing himself manfully over his chest and shoulders, face and head, running it through his beard and thick hair. Shivering and exclaiming, he grabbed for the thick towel Rolf held out, and then Sir Alain stepped up to the tub for his morning ablutions, first crossing himself.

            It would have been a strange sight, but all around them the camp was beginning to bustle with other people going about their morning rituals -- there were even a couple of priests, scurrying from tent to tent, offering absolution along with the ablutions -- and nobody paid much attention to the strange young men, half-English, so the story went -- come to that, not so strange in middle France -- at the tent with a third son’s forked banneret on its flagpole, gold trimming the edge of the limply stirring flag. The black arrows slashed diagonally across the banneret were only now becoming known to the camp, from the previous day’s tournament, when young Sir Alain had scored such notable successes, all in a row.

            Jehan and Rolf bustled around, getting breakfast and wiping off the great suits of tournament armour, now revealed from beneath the protective cloths which had covered them against the night’s dew. Already the morning mists were clearing away, and they could see the rows of tents opposite, the lines of horses and men stretching away to left and right along the river bank, and the rows beyond and behind them in turn. Pennants and banners of all nations and families were beginning to lift in the light breeze, as the vapour burned off in the valley. “A hot one, Brian,” said Sir Alain. “H’m. The German suit? Perhaps the Provencal.”

            “Provencal, I think, Sir Alain,” agreed his body-squire. “The fashioning may be too filigreed for English tastes, but it is light and strong both.”

            “Yes -- a man could smother in the German suit today -- the boar crest alone wears ten pounds.” They glanced along the front of the tent. Three suits were lined up for their lord’s choosing, and the process of dressing might take some time, as both pages knew, so they quickly wolfed down their breakfasts.

            “The Provencal, then,” said Sir Alain, on his feet and on his way into the tent. He reappeared in a few minutes, red velvet suit of quilted stuffing already half fastened, and Rolf hurried to help, while Brian, and Jehan, who was simply following along by now, turned to the row of armour.

            The great silver casque with its high boar crest and tusks was passed by, along with its padded body-armour. Likewise, the English suit, with its elongated nose-piece and domed helmet, was passed over.    The third suit, curlicued and filigreed on every inch, but with a trim sphere of a helmet and multiple eye-slits, so that vision was in fact almost entirely clear to both front and right, with even some open slashes to the left, was the one Brian stopped at. He picked up the helmet. Jehan grabbed the shoulders of the body armour and tugged. Surprised, he lurched half across the enclosure with the suit, its lightness having fooled him. After last night, he had expected to be heaving at a body-suit three times its weight.

            Rolf grinned at Brian behind his back, and collared the thighs and shin-pieces, cuisses and greaves, and brought the fluted leg-pieces over to Sir Alain, where he stood uncomfortably in the steel sabatouns, which were likewise pointed and fluted along the toes. Brian, kneeling, fastened the leg-pieces as Rolf helped Jehan lift the breast and backplates into place, over Sir Alain’s head, and Brian clipped the long, silvered arm-pieces above and below the whorled elbow-hinges, and slid on the elaborate gauntlets. Eventually, everything - including the surcoat - was in place, except the helmet-sphere, and Sir Alain donned this himself, Brian clipping it snugly down, as Rolf led his already-dressed charger around from the rear of the tent where it had been waiting with the some of the still unclaimed horses and body-suits Sir Alain had won in the previous day’s tourney.

            Brian and Rolf held the nervous horse in place, as Brian stopped to cup his laced hands under Sir Alain’s left sabatoun, and he mounted into the high saddle-bow. Brian turned to the boys, and said, “Rolf, you with us today. Jehan, with the horses and tent, here. If anyone comes to ransom them, tell him we shall return by supper.” Disappointed, Jehan turned away, as Rolf happily bounced up on to the pony carrying spare swords, maces and lances, following Brian, with Sir Alain leading the way down the crowded lane to the distant lists. Brian paused for a moment; perhaps this was not so good a move, leaving this gypsy boy alone with Sir Alain’s hard-won earnings. He dismissed the thought. The new page had to be tested eventually, one way or the other, and Rolf had earned the right to accompany them to the lists.

            A trumpeter fell in, ahead of them, and the herald, up the lane, called their name -- “Sir Alain de St Aliquis of York!” -- and an interested cheer went up along the ranks. Here he was, the  boy who’d unhorsed six belted knights the previous day. Let’s see if he could repeat the feat today! The murmur of side-wagers arose around them, as they moved at an easy pace through the crowd, toward the waiting tournament grounds, a cloud of dust around their progress.

            There was the usual bustle and delay, horses backing and turning, skittish, as the lots were drawn and challenges given and accepted. Brian found himself the centre of a small crowd of body-squires and heralds, velvet gauntlets proffered, but a black-bearded Italian thrust his hand in his face, elbowing aside the others, and sneered, “Sir, the Prince Alonzo d’Asizzi has need of you this day!” and he took hold of the green glove almost without realizing it, uttering the usual formula mechanically, “Accepted, then.” “Accepted then,” called the herald-king, and the crowd stepped back, clearing a space to the lists.

            “Thank you, Brian,” Sir Alain called down from his high saddle, voice booming inside the metal casque. “This will get the day off to a fine start.” Brian nodded mechanically. Perhaps he should have held off. That arrogant swine, though -- and a prince of the blood, however minor! He reined his horse back, dismounting out of Sir Alain’s way, as his master passed into the waiting lists, moving up towards the royal box in the centre for the expected greetings to the regal patrons, Princess Alicia de Montfort and her consort,  Prince Charles d’Anjou, and their interested guest, the greatest fighter of all France, Sir Bertrand du Gueschlin, seated in the shade under purple awnings.

             “For the first coursing of the day,” called the herald-king, “Sir Alain of St Aliquis de York, of France and England” -- murmurs went up -- “and Prince Alonzo d’Asizzi” -- mixed cheers and boos-- an uneven matching of blood,  arrogance on someone’s part -- subsiding into an interested buzzing as word went around that it was the Italian who had challenged yesterday’s champion, at the first exchange of gloves.

            Sir Alain bowed to the royal patrons, and circled back towards the southern end of the lists-- the heralds had carefully laid out the grounds so that there was no advantage of late sun at rear of anyone, at least for the runnings, although what might happened if it got down on the grounds in the afternoon would be another matter -- and let his body-squire take hold of his horse’s reins, guiding him into place, and accepted a long, heavy ash-shaft, laying it in place diagonally across his body, pointing straight down the grounds towards his Italian opponent, similarly readying his lance straight for him.  The heraldic trumpet blew, and the horses bolted for one another, needing no more than one touch of the wheeled spurs, their riders so fixed on one another that neither could hear the sudden roar of the crowds, “a halo of silence,” in the old phrase, around their heads.

            Then the crash as they met in the middle, both hitting square on one another’s shields, both slammed back in their saddle-troughs, jolted almost off their mounts, lances splintering in long slivers that went cartwheeling down the lists as the horses kept racing to the end of the run, both men clinging to their saddle-bows, heads bent, grunting with the effort to stay on board.

            They turned at the ends of the lists, and cantered slowly back past one another, left gauntlets raised in mutual acknowledgement, as the crowd rose to its feet, applauding a well-run course. Under the purple awning, Sir Bertrand shifted in his throne, eyes narrowed. This lad could take a hit, as he had been told. Asizzi, of course, was a known factor -- if shifty -- but this boy, now. French and English both? Noted.

            Sir Alain lowered his dented shield to his body-squire, accepted another, and lifted a new lance into place. At the other end of the lists, Asizzi bent to his servants, his horse stepping from side to side, and turned back towards his young opponent, lance lowering into position in the notch on his shield. At the herald’s signal, they raced for one another again, and again there was a loud bang as lances met shields, and again the horses raced on, riders still clinging to their saddles, as the crowd cheered another well-scored hit.

            A third running, with neither unhorsed, and the heralds of the lists would have to rule on whether they must dismount and advance on one another with sword and mace. Sir Alain, sweating, grinned down at Brian through the long eye-slits in his helmet, and said, “This time, me lad!”  Brian wordlessly handed him up another long ash-lance, and stepped aside as the weary horse backed obediently around into place. Sir Alain gathered up the reins, and kicked in his heels to slam the animal into motion. And then he saw, coming down the lists already, what the crowd also saw, in the same instant.

            The lance Asizzi was pointing, straight for his head, not for the shield, glittered in the sun as their horses closed the gap at high speed. The crowd roared, on its feet, the heraldic trumpet shrieked, du Gueschlin rose under the canopy, but it was too late.

            In that halo of silence, Sir Alain saw, floating towards him in slow motion, the metal-tipped  war-lance bobbing in the air as the horses raced, floated, towards one another. It was a curious sight, and he examined it with detached interest, saw the brown paint flaked off it, scraped off as it was hurriedly selected for its bearer, so that the morning sun glinted off the steel tip, the double-pronged tip, and then it closed the final gap and there was a sudden explosion of white light inside his helmet as his head was snapped back by the impact, and he felt himself rising, out of his stirrups, out of his saddle, leaving his horse, floating still through the air, and then another dazzling crash as he hit the ground, on his back, rolling behind his horse, over and over, already unconscious, like a broken, bloodied doll, arms and legs flailing limply,  his horse racing on to the end of the lists without him, as Asizzi charged past, broken lance raised in triumph.

            The crowd was booing, on its feet, as the heralds came racing in, heading for Asizzi, their horses closing in on both sides of him, one herald speeding for the broken metal tip, which had bounced free from Alain’s smashed-in helmet visor after doing its damage and then gone somersaulting across the grounds, to rest, glistening but bloodied point within yards of the royal box.  Du Gueschlin and the young royal couple were on their feet, astounded at such savage violation of all civilized tournament rules. Heralds already surrounded Asizzi’s servitors and the cache of weapons from which the monstrous lance had been drawn,  and a group of his Italian supporters in the stands were on their feet, swords drawn, keeping the surrounding crowd from dismembering them on the spot.

             Asizzi’s horse was plunging, rearing, trying to get free of the surrounding heralds, and he could be heard snarling at them, “Hands off, you dogs! I am a prince of the blood royal!” The tumult in the crowd drowned out the rest of his protests, as the herald-king motioned to his men, and they pulled him off his saddle, kicking and lashing out at them. His sword and dagger were quickly secured, and he was dragged, lunging and cursing, towards the decorated box where the herald was lifting up the broken metal lance tip for royal inspection.

            “Someone will pay for this, Asizzi,” snapped the young prince. “Take him away -- and his armourer with him! And see to that young warrior!” Even as they hustled Asizzi off, together with the servants at the end of the list, men were gathered around the broken figure of Sir Alain. Brian had already removed the smashed and bloodied helmet, revealing a white face, blood streaming from nose and mouth, and the prince’s own physician was kneeling beside him, waving back the crowd, motioning in a litter, unbuckling the twisted suit of armour, which had been dented and jammed in ugly fashion by the crashing fall.. The herald king stepped away from the stretcher and, with a glance towards the prince under the awning, called in a loud voice, “Horse and armour of Prince Asizzi forfeit to Sir Alain de York!” An approving roar went up from the stands, but the young body squire and the page following the litter out of the grounds to the waiting medical tent, carrying now-useless pieces of his armour,  paid it no heed.
                                                 

End of Chapter Two, The Gypsy Knights.

Chapter Three, The Gypsy Knights: Bandits in the Forest.

            Jehan paused, the prescribed ten meters in front of the baggage wagon, long pilgrim’s staff held in one hand, the other raised, two fingers held up together.. At the reins, Rolf pulled the old horse to a halt, reaching down with one hand for his unscabbarded sword. Sir Brian - knighted but the week before by du Gueschlin at the near-fatal tournament in Orleans - pulled his horse to the side of the wagon inside which Sir Alain lay, leg and arm strapped high, face swathed in bandages, and stood in his stirrups looking to the rear, backing his horse protectively in towards the wagon.

            The rush was not long in coming. One ruffian charged Jehan from his left, to be met by a swift head-blow from the metal-shod pilgrim staff which spun him around and dropped him, knife falling in the ferns, as another ran in on the gypsy from his right, and a sweep of the staff below his knees dropped him in the cart-track, a whirl of the staff to the head finishing him for the afternoon. Jehan bent and swiftly completed the job with the dagger from the back of his belt.

            But it was a diversion, as two more leapt up at Rolf on the wagon-seat, and a backwards right and a left slash from his short sword cut them, dead, away from the prize. Another was clinging to Sir Brian, whose horse rolled its eyes wildly as it reared, tumbling him below its hooves, where he was trampled savagely, Sir Brian leaning over to spear him thro the body, let go the spear and draw the horse back on its rear legs away from the already-dead attacker, drawing his sword and flipping his shield around from his back and covering against any arrows that might follow.

            None came, however. Five only, this time. Sir Alain, helpless inside the baggage-wagon in  his expert bindings, could only wave his dagger blindly, stabbing and cursing wildly, as Rolf gathered the reins and waited for Sir Brian to regain control of his horse. The Loire forest rustled around them in the Summer breeze, old oaks spreading for leagues on every side, but there was silence except for the hoarse breathing of the small party, crouched and looking in every direction. They waited, ears up, weapons out.

            At a signal from Sir Brian, Jehan resumed his position, ten meters ahead of the wagon, and they set off again. The dead men lay where they had fallen, as a warning to anyone else with a mind to interfere with travelers. Jehan did take one interesting-looking dagger from where it had fallen in the ferns to his left and put it in his boot-top, next to the one from the morning attack.

            The wagon followed him around the bend and down the long slope to the river, where an abandoned, flat-bottomed  ferry was pulled up to their side, its long rope dangling far out, dipping under the water and then re-appearing on the other side,. No sign of the ferry-man or his boy, unless that was one of them floating in the reeds downriver a little way. Rolf leaned back, holding the wagon brake with one foot, the reins taut as the old horse almost sat down on its rear legs, descending the slope. Why hadn’t the robbers waited a few minutes longer, when the attention of the traveling party would have been distracted by the difficulty of this descent, rather than jumping at them in the level glade, where they could defend themselves as easily as they had done? Sir Brian, still bringing up the rear with sword in hand, head constantly on the move to all sides, shrugged, thankful for small mercies and untrained attackers. At least Sir Alain hadn’t broken free of his bonds, endangering his recovery, as the prince’s physician had warned he might well try to do, once the poppy-juice had ceased to be effective in keeping him down.

            “We have dressed these wounds to his face, my lord,” he had said to the newly-belted knight, du Guesclin’s French commission still wet on the small table beside the hospital bed. “They are indeed grievous, but will heal, if your squires will be careful to change the dressings each evening and morning, with clean water that has been boiled and left to cool. The leg and the shoulder, likewise, will heal - he is young, and in good health - if they be kept immobile, as I will show you once we transport him to your wagon - and yet, a few more days here? Not so? Then must you travel carefully, my lord Sir Brian. The princess my lady is already en route south, to Bordeaux, and must I follow at once...” Sir Brian had held up a hand to stop the torrent of excuses. He knew camp had already been broken all around them, tents were coming down everywhere, the great gathering was dispersing, most south and west to Bordeaux and thence over the Pyrenees to Spain, a few bound for Calais and England, some back to Germany and Hungary, others already on their way to Italy, or thro Paris the fair to Switzerland - no force to him. His charge was in front of him, faced heavily bandaged, one eye covered, the other shut, nose and mouth just visible, right leg and arm held in the air in a strange contraption of the physician’s own design.

            “My thanks to you, lord physician,” he said. “My lord - friend, Sir Alain, would thank you also and he could. But we must needs follow the company to Bordeaux, where Prince Edward has need of us for King Pedro’s return to Spain..”

            The doctor raised his eyebrow. Then this lad had not heard about the plague ravages in that direction, and perhaps also did not yet fully comprehend the significance of dropping the knee to du Gueschlin, whose visit to the hospital on the day before had in fact changed so much in these young lives once he had put his sword to the bowed neck of the wounded young warrior’s body-squire, in recompense for his loyalty and, as he had said, as passage-warrant thro the lands of France in which they were currently domiciled, as one might put it. .

            “Arise, Sir Brian de Lyons and Guyenne,” he had said, and the young fool had grasped his glove, kissing it mechanically in acceptance of this high honour, a commission to protect his then-sleeping friend, the physician’s aides busy bandaging his face and splinting his leg and arm, ears cocked to the ceremony. Yes, of Lyons and Guyenne, certainly. Of York, as clearly to anyone who could read heraldic sign, and there would be hell to pay across the English Channel once the news got back to his aging uncle in the north. But of course what was to be done, once du Gueschlin had made up his mind to intervene, for whatever reasons of his own chess-game, and the young lads had clearly been errant across this side of the Channel in search of the fortune that, being younger males in a small aristocratic family, naturally was closed to them by other means? The physician had closed one ear, keeping the other on his patient. It was none of his business, and in fact might be all to the good, God willing, in the long run. Fortunes had been made - and of course lost - by such strange chances of war.

            Meanwhile, he had a patient to move from a hospital bed to the back of a loaded baggage-wagon - could they not have bought a second wagon, with the winnings this young lad now on his back had won in the great truce-time tournament  so abruptly ended by the flagrant treachery in the lists that had laid him in this bed? - and this he could do with expertise gained in these interesting wars spreading all around them. At least these young men would now have the protection of the fleur de lys of France on the small shields du Gueschlin had had installed beside Sir Alain’s heraldic marks  - his own slashed black arrows, and the impudent quartered shield of England - on the sides of their baggage-wagon. Most raiders would respect the fleur de lys, if not all. For the rest, it was up to the able-bodied men in the party.

            “One last thing, my lord,” he said, hesitating. How to put this?

            Sir Brian waited, gold coin in hand. The physician saw its glint. How not to offend this friend of his patient, beneficiary of royal generosity?  “I must ask you to watch for signs of... change in your friend, once the bandages on his face are removed.” There. It was out.

            “Change?” Sir Brian waited. These damned doctors.

            “Yes.” The physician’s torrent of words had slowed to a trickle, indeed. “There will of necessity be damage to the cheek and perhaps eye or mouth of Sir Alain”

            “Indeed.”

            “No matter my skill with needle and thread, following such an injury to the face, extending as far from jaw to ear, and upwards towards the eye, complete and final restoration of the features may not be guaranteed.” Was this a damned contract?

            “Go on.” Sir Brian’s natural warmth of youth had faded overnight. He must hear the remnant.

            “Your friend will bear scars from this event, my lord. Their severity and extent cannot be known completely at this time. In a week - eight days - the stitches I have placed to hold the wound together must be removed, or yellow or red infection will result. The bandages will of course have been changed each day, as instructed. It is my estimate that the flesh will almost completely be healed at that point.”

            “Almost?”

            “Almost completely, my lord. The youth and health of the patient foretell an excellent recovery.”
So what was the problem?

            “So what is the problem you foresee, these ‘changes’ of which you speak?”

            “Yes.” This lad was indeed a bulldog. “In young men, especially, there is sometimes a tendency to exaggerate the ill effect of this change upon those who see them. It is in point of fact rarely as negative as they take it to be, but that tendency may cause problems of which I would have you be aware, so as to prepare for them, as much as can be done.” The day was wasting, the light changing already.

            “Thank you, good lord physician.” Sir Brian went to hand the gold piece to the doctor, who reluctantly refused it. Word would get back to the princess, one way or the other. “Then I will be aware of these changes, and I will forbid a mirror until all is well.”

            “Hah - exactly, my lord!” This young man had quicker wits than at first appeared. “That will be most helpful. Young ladies may indeed find this mark of jousting to their liking, as you may remind our patient, once he is of mind to listen to you.  Fathers, also, may not necessarily be ill-disposed to a young suitor bearing the clear mark of experience in arms - however treacherously acquired, as here!” The young lord did not appear amused or willing to join in the physician’s warm humor. The doctor immediately put on his solemn face once more.

             “And therefore you may counter this tendency, which has been observed in other patients similarly enscarred, to gaze often upon the mirror, which is known to be a snare for souls, and to dote upon the moon more than before.” Clearly , this was going over the head of his listener who was in fact hardly listening at all any more, looking instead to the young gypsy holding the reins of his traveling horse,  and to the blonde Anglish page mounted up on the bench of the baggage wagon into which the patient was now carefully installed. “And so God be with you, my lord Sir Brian. This poppy-juice may be given your patient should he attempt to escape from these bonds into which we have now strapped him for his safety and healing.. Not more than five drops at a time, Sir Brian, and not so often as he may develop a craving for the medicine. I do thank you for your patience, and God speed again.”

            The doctor had stepped back, Sir Brian had swung to the saddle, and at last the small party was off on the river road beside the broad and winding Loire. The Summer was passing above them, and it was time to be on the road. What doctoring could do had been done, and Death had retreated once more, for the time being. There was wealth in those bags under Sir Alain’s head as pillows, and France before them. Sir Alain would survive, if there was anything he could do about it, bandits or no bandits in the forest.

End Chapter Three, The Gypsy Knights.

Chapter Four: Into The Pyrenees.

            The foothills of the great mountains dividing France the fair from the land of the Moors were beginning to rise on either side of the wagon-road, signs of the recently-passed great army on either hand - abandoned baggage, the occasional smoky fire of camp-followers, now and then a poorly-clad soldier on crutches, his leather armour and metal-shod staff or small dagger all that remained of his bartered equipment, waiting for the snows to come down from the mountains and finish them off before the wolves did.

            The small party huddled in the baggage-wagon, war-horses tied behind, glanced occasionally at the passing scene. Rolf and Sir Brian shared the wagon-seat, Jehan was inside tending to the still recuperating Sir Alain, most of whose face bandages had been removed, revealing a twisted, scarred cheek, one eye still covered with a black patch, leg and shoulder still splinted and propped over the money-bags they carried in flour-sacks. Their long swords were still handy, belts wrapped around the scabbards tucked along under the seat, but the armour-suits for Sir Alain and, now, Sir Brian were carefully wrapped in heavy cloths, to keep them from the damp air. The cloth or velvet caps all three wore covered steel bonnets so that, wrapped in travelling cloaks, they might have passed for merchants on the road after the French-English army making its way by the southern route, to come up behind the back of the Moors waiting - it was hoped - a northern assault from the army of Pedro the Cruel, which had gone out of Bordeaux’ plague-infested walls with banners and bagpipes proclaiming their intentions. Du Gueschlin was, of course, travelling with the southern army, having mortgaged his reputation on the success of this two-pronged attack, which Pedro had not in the least cared for but had to settle for, given the enmity of Edward, the Black Prince, to this Frenchman and his useful companies.

            All moot by now, of course. Beggars for royal aid must accept what could be made available, and Edward had proven a difficult prince enough to persuade to bring all of his armies together with Pedro in one mad dash across the northern Pyrenees and down on the massed infidels as was now Pedro and his advisors’ chosen course, let alone knowingly agree to act in concert with the French marauders to the south.

            Pedro had even attempted to enlist God on their side, as was naturally expected, but Edward had simply smiled politely, and said, “Then He is on our side, the side of His avenging armies, my lords, and a wonderful thing it will be, once the infidels sharpen their spears at news of their enemies’ coming boldly and regally from the north.” It had been almost insulting, and he had been marked down in the rolls for it. But no force, the armies had remained divided, du Gaskin’s to skulk south and come up behind the enemy, the noble - if proudly Cruel - King Pedro to sweep from the north, the one to distract attention by this noble display of arms, the other to savage the flanks of the infidels like dogs. At least if they were victorious they would then be back in Castile, on Pedro’s ground, and not where du Gueschlin or Edward could easily call on more French or other reinforcements. But they should have thought of that in council, Pedro and his advisors agreed.

            Far from the councils of state, behind the army Sir Brian was now bound to follow, and Sir Alain to weak yet to argue otherwise, still toiling up the slopes of the foothills, in the ancient land of the Cathars - or so they thought might be the case - the four young warriors huddled in their wagon, letting the new horse they’d taken from an overturned, perhaps curiously abandoned wagon some leagues back, pick its careful way up the rocky, rutted track, the reins held loosely in Rolf’s fingers, giving the horse its head.

            Was it already Winter, or had they left Autumn behind in the green valleys of France? The wind swept some sleet across their track, the horse ducked its head, blinking tiredly, and on they went.

            A hooded figure held up an arm some meters ahead, and Rolf drew the slack out of the reins. The horse paused. “Do you pass near Montaillou?” The figure had a woman’s voice, and the men glanced at one another. Traveling alone in these mountains? Either a foolish one, or one well-protected by whatever passed for rank and law in these parts.

            “It may be so,” Sir Brian called down to the hooded figure. “And how may we assist you?” Perhaps this was foolish courtesy, but he was willing to hazard it, for a couple of reasons, one being that he was young.

            “Then if you will assist a traveler, perhaps in turn I will be able to lead you to hospitality,” the hooded figure replied. “I have need of help for my companion.” She turned to a heap of rags they had not noticed. “She may walk no further this day.” Rolf glanced at Sir Brian. So this was what came of politesse. He was tempted to pull the reins tight, and urge the tired horse onwards.

            But Sir Brian was off the wagon-seat and down by the side of the old lady - as she proved to be - and Jehan made room for them, piling some of the bags together, clearing a space beside Sir Alain inside the wagon. Finally Sir Brian nodded to Rolf, and on up the pass they went.

            At a fork in the road, a league or so further on, the younger woman directed them to the left, and Rolf, after a glance at Sir Brian, pulled the horse’s head over and down the slope they traveled. It was indeed easier, traveling downhill, with night falling and snow in the air. Jehan lit a lantern, got out of the rear of the wagon, came around to the front, and took the horse’s bridle. On they went, down a rock-strewn, ill-kept path, the wide wagon road that the army of du Gaskin’s companies had been following soon left behind them. The light was clearly changing, in this dark and narrow cleft, and they went slower all the time, going deeper into the mountains, down and down a narrow, crooked pass.

            But after a considerable time, full darkness having fallen, with no moon in the sky, the road broadened out again, turning up as it did so, and the tired horse snuffled in the air, almost attempting to whinny. An answering whinny sounded in the rocks ahead, and as they turned a corner weak lantern-light spilled across the path further ahead, still uphill, and something moved in the rocks. Rolf drew up on the reins, Sir Brian reaching under the seat for his sword, but their passenger said, “Wait - we are among friends now.”

            They relaxed again, still keeping the swords in reach, and Jehan turned the horse’s head towards the light and the sound of that other horse. The younger passenger, up between Sir Brian and Rolf on the seat, said something over her shoulder to the older woman, still huddled down beside Sir Alain - was that Latin? - and then, leaning forward, spoke more loudly to whoever was standing guard, saying -- yes, that was Latin - “Hail - it is your lady come back. These are friends.”

            The guard urged the horse forward, harness quietly jingling, and raised the small lantern to look first at Jehan, the light passing up and then down his alien form - few gypsies this far West and South at this date - perhaps the first ever seen in these mountain parts - and then said to the lady, “Welcome back, mistress.” Latin also - and also female. Rolf glanced down at Jehan and at Sir Brian, who was looking from one hooded figure in the wagon to the other on horseback. Sir Alain, from inside the wagon, called out somewhat peevishly, “What’s going on, Brian?”

            “Not to worry,” Sir Brian said backwards, without turning his head. He spoke in English, the tongue he had shared with Sir Alain in their travels. “Friends, I think.”

            “Friends, yes,” said the hooded figure beside him, in French. “And we will repay you for your courtesy, my lord, as soon as we get us all inside..”

            Sir Brian’s head swiveled back towards Sir Alain for direction, but his friend seemed to have spent his energy, and was slumped back on the bags, head lolling. He nodded to Rolf - go ahead - and the wagon moved forward, following the guard on horseback, up a final rockily-paved slope, going at right-angles under a raised gate, and finally, at weary last, coming to a halt in what seemed to be the walled courtyard of a small fort or castle. Snow was gently falling in the darkness, as the gate came down behind them.

            Retainers -- all in dark robes, all women, from what Rolf or the others could tell - came from the great door to their right, surrounding the wagon, first to carry the old woman in rags from her place beside Sir Alain, and then to begin expertly removing him from the straps and bindings that had held him in place throughout their journey, and transfer him to a litter for passage indoors. Jehan stood back, watching them, leaning on his pilgrim staff. These women knew what they were doing. Better not to interfere with skilled nurses.

            Sir Brian, at her gesture, followed the younger of the two wayfarers inside the great hall, followed by Rolf and then by Jean, in order of rank, the remainder of the women bringing up the rear, speaking in side-conversations to one another about these interesting young men whom Lady Fortune had brought their way this cold Autumn night, snow already on its way.

            The hall was bright and warm, twisted and lighted brands high in sconces along each side on a long central trestle table, rushes along the floor as if royalty had been expected, a fire in the large stone hearth, black pots swung over the flames or drawn back already, steam and wonderful odors rising into the air. Was that a vegetable stew he could smell? Rolf breathed deep. The rabbits had been scarce along the road, after the ravages of the companies, and up in these mountains beef was unlikely. Even vegetables might be scarce already. There was a well-stocked root-cellar somewhere in this castle.

            Wine and beer also appeared, in heavy pewter flagons, and the party stripped off their traveling cloaks, following Sir Brian in unbuckling sword-belts and laying aside their small round shoulder-shields. A great wooden arm-chair - almost a throne - stood near the fire, for Sir Brian to slump into, and one maiden knelt to unlace his leggings and place his feet on a wide footstool. He gestured to Rolf, who turned to Jehan. “The horses?”

            “Taken care of, my lord. There are stable-maids also.”

            “Stable-maids?” Sir Brian frowned, too suddenly weary to question further. This was a strange household. Where was the lord of the manor? But a serving-wench laid a tray across his lap, a large bread-trencher filled with that hot, wonderful-smelling stew, and he fell to with one hand, holding his pewter flagon steady for her to refill it with dark wine, and his men sat, as directed, at the lower end of the long trestle, served likewise with great bread-bowls of stew and flagons of golden beer, and they likewise fell to with not another word.

            Their apparent hostess had disappeared, following the old crone being carried on a litter to another chamber, and they ate and drank until they were full, bellies swelled with the miraculous abundance of good fare. The serving-women went back and forth from kitchen to hearth to trestle-table, talking in low voices in some strange kind of French-Spanish tongue that none of the men could quite follow, altho it seemed they were as much the subject as the wounded lord and the aged woman being taken care of elsewhere.

            At last, the meal being over and cleared away - not until they had eaten every last bite of the stew, crumbling their bread-trenchers into it, sopping all of it up, until the trenchers had disappeared and only crumbs were left, the flagons refilled as they were emptied - the men sighed, stretching. Sir Brian motioned them to draw smaller stools nearer the fire, and they gathered around him.

            “’Twould seem a richly repaid courtesy,” Rolf said, “this picking up the wayfarers.”

            “Aye,” Sir Brian acknowledged, raising his flagon to theirs. “A fortunate thing to have done.”

            “We shall yet see,” said Jehan, his dark eyes glancing around them. “’Tis a noble household, grant ye that.” The hangings on the wall seemed to depict some kind of hunt, women pursuing a herd of unicorns or some such. Diana the Huntress-Goddess? There were shields with crossed spears at the further end of the hall, below a small minstrel-gallery of some kind, but he could not make out the heraldic markings if that was what they were. A movement in the minstrel- gallery caught his eye, and he let his hand fall to his boot, where both daggers were still sheathed. But it was only a maiden and some kind of small harp, and the tinkling sound of the music gently filled the hall. Rolf was already nodding in the firelight, blonde hair falling forward across his face. Sir Brian felt himself sleepy in the warmth of the flames. Rolf looked for a rush-bed, and saw one in the shadow beside the hearth, near him. He would be dreaming in a little while, he thought.

            Then the door to the inner rooms opened, and the young woman who had first hailed their wagon on the mountain, and now seemed lady of the household, came into the room, followed by a serving-maid carrying a smaller armchair, to set opposite Sir Brian at the fire, and the men stood, the younger ones moving their stools back to make room for her. She permitted the servant to place her chair on the rushes and stand behind it, and settled herself, smiling courteously, waving the men back to their seats. Her servant handed around the spiced wine, and withdrew to the rear of the trestle, in the shadows, waiting. Jehan rolled his wine in his cup, as did Rolf, not sure if they should remain seated or join her. With no signal otherwise, they remained seated.

            “And so,” she said in English to Sir Brian, “our household thanks you for your courtesy in bringing safely home our lady mother and myself from our visit outside.” Sir Brian bowed his head, not sure what to say. “I am the Lady Elaine of these Pyrenees mountains, and you are..?”

“I am Brian - Sir Brian of... Of York and of Lyon and Guyenne,” he said, lifting his cup in thanksgiving to her ladyship. “These be my retainers, Rolf and Jehan, and our friend, the wounded knight, is Sir Alain de Aliquis de York and also of Guyenne.” She bowed her head in acknowledgement. “We are in pursuit of the companies of Sir Bertrand du Gueschlin, who are some time ahead of us, travelling into Castile the Great.”

            “Yes,” said the Lady Elaine. “We have had evidence of his passage, these past few days.” Was that a somewhat rueful smile on her cheek, in the flickering firelight and shadow. “And my mother the lady Morgain has been at care to repair some damage that some of his more unruly followers have done.”

            Was that a reproach to Sir Bertrand? Brian was not quite sure how to proceed. He hesitated. The Lady Elaine seemed to be smiling more. “No force,” she said. “The child will live. Carelessness of brutes who may never be identified. The damage is not fatal. But in our returning, the donkey that my lady mother was riding upon was not able to traverse some ridge or other, and we were left afoot, some leagues from our house, and your gracious lordship saw fit to rescue two ladies, as knighthood should.” She was mocking him, he was sure. He had not seen the old woman at first, had stopped at the silver voice of the Lady Elaine herself.

            “I had not seen your - your lady mother,” he said half-apologizing, half-confessing.” She smiled, clearly now, and her light giggle went thro him like a tinkling bell.

            “But you did not go on, once you did see her,” she said, raising her cup. “And we are more than grateful to you for your courtesy.” He bowed, feeling his blushing go up his cheeks.  She was a beautiful young woman. He sipped a little more spiced wine.

            “The, uh, the tapestry..?” he asked, to change the subject as gracefully as possible. He did not want to change the subject. He wanted to keep talking about how wonderful he was.

            “Oh,” she said, almost dismissively. “It is of the huntress-goddess, Diana of the Moon.” She turned her head, to smile into his eyes. “Is she not lovely?” Yes, he nodded. “And your friend,” she said - how could he have forgotten? - “He has been most grievously wounded, I see. In battle, mayhap?”

            “No,” he said, suddenly jealous. “In tourney, by a treacherous knight, who used a pointed weapon.” Her lovely eyebrows arched. “But he has been well-doctored, with good instructions, and my men  here” - he waved in the direction of Rolf and Jehan, who were either asleep or somewhere else- “have cared well for him. Under my guidance,” he added.

            The Lady Elaine was smiling again into his eyes. “Then you are both wise and brave, as well as courteous, Sir Brian,” she said. “And to have you for a friend - that is most fortunate for Sir Alain, I think.” Enough of Sir Alain, he thought, and then repented.

            “He is a most valiant knight,” he said, “and has led us across Europe most wonderfully this past year and more.”

            “Across Europe,” she said softly. “How wonderful, to have traveled across Europe.”

            “Europe,” he said. “Italy. Ah, Germany. And France. Paris. The Loire.”

            “You have been,” she said, “almost everywhere...”

            “England,” he managed. “We came from England.”

            “England,” she breathed. “What a wonderful place that must be.”

            At last she rose, saying, “And shall I show you to your room?” He rose also. A torch was placed in her hand, and she turned to precede him. 

End of Chapter Four, The Gypsy Knights
 

Chapter Five: On to Castile

            The thunder of the last of the blizzard struck and then struck the wagon again, with dying fury, sighing off northward along the crest of the last ridge, dwindling as it went. The men huddled inside waited for its return. When it seemed at last to have vanished, Rolf, the driver, clambered back over the seat, pulling the curtain closed again behind him, and unwrapped the reins from the brake-post. He gee’d the old horse, slapping the stiff reins once across its withers, giving it time to lift its head and slouch forward once more, one slow step at a time down the winding trail that led at last into Spain.

            In the wagon behind him, Jehan crouched in a ball, his cloaks wrapped around him, trying to stop the shivering. Sir Brian and Sir Alain, wrapped in one great blanket for warmth, shook together, feeling the wagon at last rolling again.

            “God, I wish we were back at the castle of Lady Elaine,” mumbled Sir Brian, rubbing Sir Alain briskly up and down the arms, holding his body close for warmth.. Sir Alain did not reply, feeling the numbness leave the arm which was still covered in bandages, altho the wooden frame holding it to the side of the wagon had been removed two days before, letting his leg, also still bandaged, still propped up inside the lower part of the frame. At least the eye patch over his left eye was all that remained of the bandages that had swathed his face and head until the previous night, when Brian had finally pronounced his face ready for the fresh air. He almost regretted the decision, feeling perhaps it might have been premature, given the chill of the mountain air still. But he also felt he had little say, Brian having been his physician since Orleans, as far as he could remember. Since the waking then sleeping, the waking again. Pain all over, pain in his face, in his head. His arm and his leg, unable to move them for so long. Brian, his cousin, childhood friend, had taken care of him, he knew that was true. He felt drowsy again. Was it time for the poppy-juice? Brian had said no, last time he had asked.  Perhaps he was right. Sir Alain dozed, in his arms, as the wagon slowly rolled and bumped down the rocky path, down and down towards the far plains of Castile, so far below them. The world grew pleasantly dark again, the light receded. Sir Alain slept once more.

             They would not go back the route they had taken to come in, Jehan knew that without being told. This place was hidden for good reason, and they would eventually come out somewhere else in the labyrinth of these mountain passes, higher up and further along towards Castile, but in no manner able to retrace their steps. Nor, he realized, as they passed under the raised gate, should they wish to. This was, he felt in his bones, a sacred place. The gods or goddesses might have played a role in bringing them here in the first place; as surely, they played a role in their going forth. He bowed at the threshold, and stepped carefully across, his hand on the strange pendant that had been placed around his neck by the woman who had finished helping him pack the wagon for their journey.

            “You have done well, friend Jehan,” she had said, in that strange language which, he recognized, had almost as much in common with his own Romany as it did with the French spoken by most of the people he had been traveling thro for these past months. “Perhaps this will be of some assistance to you, in that road you must now travel.”  He had bowed his head to permit her to slip the pendant over his head. He stood at the side of the horse, accepting his fate, and then moved forward to the bridle.

            Rolf had been less accepting, of course. He was at the reins already, ready to go before any of the others were finished with their packing and strapping of the gifts of food and other unnamed items in the wagon, his eyes flickering under his blonde brows, back and forth. He had accepted the circlet placed around his wrist with stiff withholding, so it seemed to Jehan, and later he found that it had been discarded once they were around the first bend in the trail leading away from that strange castle. That was as must be, Jehan recognized. The spell of the priests had been cast early on Rolf, that was clear.   Pity, thought Jehan. So much could be learned from these women, if one could accept their ways. But, he recognized, this was the traveling party he had cast his lot in, for now, and it was clear in any case that they were expected now to depart the castle demesne. So be it. He bent his head and trudged on, hand on the bridle nodding up and down beside him.

            Sir Brian, of course, had made his leave-taking from the Lady Elaine with somewhat more ceremony, after his friend and companion Sir William had been safely ensconced in the wagon, bedded down once more among the sacks distributed to spread his weight and disturb his spread-out arm and leg with least discomfort. He had seemed asleep once more, whatever potions or medicines the castle healer had added to the dwindling stock of poppy-juice or whatever it had been they had traveled on, this far from Orleans. “Sleep is best,” said the Lady Elaine. “He will awake rested, and almost ready to take up arms once you are over the border into Spain.” Sir William had not quite been so sure, but it was clear that, in some sense that in fact he was not quite clear about, they must travel onwards now.  He finally swung to his saddle, clutching the pendant she had given him, along with her silken sleeve,  bending to her one last time, then following the wagon under the portcullis, stooping to pass beneath it, and was gone without further ignoble delay.

            The guide had led them to where the guide had led them, and, pointing onwards, turned her horse and left them. Rolf had flapped the reins once, face set forward, and soon it was as if the castle was but a dream for each man to hold in his heart, for good or ill, as they climbed steadily up into the fleeting storm on the roof of the Pyrenees ahead, crossing over, and now, heading downhill, hoped to catch up with the great companies of Sir Bertrand du Guesclin’s armies, still ahead of them at a steady pace, heading for Castile and north to Valladolid, ancient capital of Spain where what would happen would happen and their fortunes in battle would be met, one way or the other.  Jehan touched the talisman on its light chain, suspended around his neck. Fortune would do as Fortune would.

End of Chapter Five,  The Gypsy Knights.

Chapter Six: A Parting of the Ways

            “Du Gueschlin has done what?” The outraged roar from Sir Alain brought Sir Brian around from checking the harness on the great tournament destrier at the tail of the wagon, leaving the gypsy page Jehan to bring the huge beast back under control again, plunging and rearing.

            The messenger was still getting his foam-flecked horse, its eyes rolling, back under control. “He has put the Spanish bastard on the throne of Castile!” He was impatient to be gone. “I am for Bordeaux, to tell the Black Prince - and King Pedro.”

            “Then tell them from a distance,” Sir Alain snarled, face flushed. “They will kill you else!”

            The messenger nodded thanks for the dipper of water, whirled his horse, and was gone.

            “Your friend du Gueschlin!” roared Sir Alai, whirling madly on Sir Brian.” The fox has tricked the English again!”

            Sir Brian flushed. “My friend?” he said. “Without his badges, we had been pillaged ten times on the road from Orleans!”
           
            “And so your honor is pillaged now!” yelled Sir Alain. He kicked the leather bucket from which the messenger’s horse had been drinking, and it leapt in the air, to fall on its side. Jehan jumped in to prevent the loss of its contents, and Sir Alain aimed another kick at him. “Damned gypsy!” he yelled. “And you knew about this too, didn’t you?”

            Sir Alain stepped in between them. “The lad knew nothing,” he protested. “You are too choleric, Alain!”

            “Alain, forsooth? Alain, is it? And whence the insolence?”

            “Insolence?” Sir Brian was astonished.

            “I am your elder - and the better in rank, as mine was granted by a true knight of England, not by some jumped up Breton hedge squire!” The old insult at du Gueschlin, given his humble origin, flared up between them.

            “Chief knight of all France,” Sir Brian retorted proudly. “And with as much right to dub a knight for bravery in battle as any other lord!”

            “Bravery in battle?” Sir Brian sneered. “You but held my horse when I was unseated in tourney!”

            “Aye, and nursed you ‘cross France and half of Spain, to boot!” The fat was in the fire now. “Had not been for nursing you, you had died long since, or gone as raving as you are now!”

            The swords were half out, and Rolf leaped in between, daring to separate them. “Lords! Lords! You are friends of old! Let not this dreadful news come between you!”

            “Dreadful news?” Sir Alain scoffed. “This trusting fool probably thinks it will be for the good of Europe to keep Spain for France and hold England to Bordeaux!”

            “Better that than permit Pedro the Cruel to unleash his Inquisition one more time!” There was no cooling them down. “Trusting?” He was choking with rage. It was so close the mark. “ I have his word and safe passage -”

            “His word and safe passage? To bring this wagon to his freebooting companies the easier to loot it!” Sir Alain was boiling over, the long scar down the left side of his face, from eye to mouth, standing out crooked and white like lightning against his choleric rage. “He gave you easy rank” -

            “Easy rank? You ungrateful madman! If not for me, you’d have died before we got over the Loire!”

            “Better died than been a traitor to my liege lord Edward! And  you to me!”

            “To  you?” This was getting astonishing.

            “You swore as my squire to follow and tend me - not to leap forth and steal whatever childish glory you might from this - French nincompoop!”

            “Nincompoop? When he has left the monster Pedro cooling his heels and saved the peace in Spain from the Moors by this - “

            “Theft! This theft! And to defend it is to be a thief!” Sir Alain spat on the ground at Sir Brian’s feet. “I curse you, you childish fool! Get thy gear and be gone from my sight!” He slammed his sword into the water barrel on the side of the wagon,  jerked it loose as the staves around the top burst, and stalked off to get his destrier.

            “Begone? Thief? I shall, and at once!” Sir Brian roared after him. “And a full half of these goods be mine!”

            “Take them, and be damned,” Sir William roared back, stalking past Rolf and Jehan, too stunned by the quarrel to do more than look from one to the other, completely baffled. Surely the knights did not mean this violent parting to end a friendship that had brought them across half of Europe together, seeking fortune and glory together? Sir Brian’s near-fatal wounding in Orleans - Sir Brian’s loving care of him - they would mend the rift - it was only temporary.

            But the young warriors were adamant. By afternoon’s end, the wagon had been  emptied out, the spoils of their travel roughly divided - neither would touch anything the other laid claim to, neither would claim what the other might, both had possessions dearly bought in their travels - and in the end Sir Alain, with Rolf, his clenched-faced Saxon squire, was saddled and ready to turn back, towards Bordeaux and Edward the Black Prince of Wales and his Spanish ally, King Pedro the Cruel of Castile, and Sir Brian, with Jehan the dark gypsy squire, was up on the bench of the baggage wagon, headed for Castile or Valladolid - it was not clear - and Sir Bertrand du Gueschlin and Trantamara, bastard brother of Pedro, whom he had placed upon the throne of Castile in defiance of what everyone had believed was a peace agreement between France and England, to stop the war between them and join in driving the Moors out of Spain..

By nightfall the jingle of Sir Alain’s harness, great destrier in tow, Rolf on his second mount, bags slung across his saddle, had faded over the horizon, heading back over the Pyrenees to Edward and Bordeaux, and the half-emptied baggage wagon, bouncing along on the road to Valladolid, was catching up with the scorched swathe of du Gueschlin’s companies as they marched onward deeper into Castile.. Where they might go from there - if indeed they would ever see one another again - could not be seen in the dark war-clouds that hung low in the skies between them.

End Chapter Six.

Chapter  Seven: The Road From Spain

            War-weary, Sir Brian of Lyons and Guyenne, Captain of a Hundred in the White Company, lifted himself in the stirrups of his newly-acquired horse. Swiveling painfully - the sword slash across his ribs had no more healed than had the cut across his eyebrow - he turned to look back at the baggage train of loot on its way from Valladolid to Brittany.  His men strolled along, conversing, laughing, but he had a premonition about the ravine they were halfway thro. It reminded him of another ravine, where they had held the heights surrounding the pass, and butchered an English company despite its fearsome longbows. Du Guesclin’s hit-and-run tactics had worn down the Black Prince’s forces in this way, time and again, true. But still. His nose twitched.  Was that campfire smoke he smelt?

            He raised a gloved hand, and the band straggled to a halt, the mules insisting on walking into the rear of the wagons in front of them, their drivers cursing low. Their French Englishman knew what he was doing, he had proved it. They reached for their spears, shifting their shields around, scanning the slopes on both sides.

            Nothing. They waited, the wind sighing on the dead grass and the barren rocks, the few Spring flowers. Their leader kept his hand up. The rearguard shifted in closer. Nothing. He lowered his hand, and they gathered themselves together. They were on the downward slope from the plateau  where Valladolid of the many towers , Moorish and Gothic, raised itself still, after these many  years of war and plunder, impatient for the seacoasts and the ships to take them homeward, to Paris and London, Dublin and Hamburg. Rich from the business of war, the Hundred had readily agreed to follow their French-English lord, keeping together for safety in these wild hills. But Pedro’s army had been scattered, the Black Prince was busy with Limoges, the hard discipline of marching and slashing their way out of the wars behind them was loosening with each league they put between themselves and du Guesclin’s regal camp in Valladolid. Time for a break. But Sir Brian kept his hawkish eyes scanning the hilltops, and  his reluctant veterans slid their shields and spears to the ready, just in case he was right one more time.

But the screaming nuns were long behind them, after all, the ones who’d tried to stop them taking the chalices as their due. The farmers who’d tried to claim starvation, so they could keep their buried grain-sacks - and the gold inside them, too - away from the White Company, they had perished long since, following the foolish boys who’d leapt at the soldiers in defense of their loutish fathers and their precious treasures, which were now stacked inside the baggage-train.. The smoke of their hovels had long since floated to the sky, as warnings to other rebellious peasants who had decided to defy the free companies, rather than accept du Guesclin’s terms - half and half, fair was fair, and nobody put to the sword. The lessons that had been necessary had been taught. The land was theirs, deserted for miles around them. Nobody was left to interfere with the White company’s March to the fair land of France, and the lovely seaports waiting for them.

            “Marchons!” called the sergeant-of-arms at the vanguard, eye on his master, and the column slowly uncoiled and started down its rocky path once more. The sun was still high, they had broken camp early, and it would be almost as long until they made camp again for the night. Still, France lay over the next range of hills, and they would be out of this barbaric land for a while, home from the wars, until their money ran out and they felt that old wanderlust - the campfire smoke, the clash of weapons,  the hoarse song of the Compagniers, the lure of strange land and ready loot - and they would drift back to war once again. What other trade did they have?

            The first arrow took Sir Bran thro the upraised wrist, as he turned in his saddle to wave the men on. The second one passed thro his throat, severing the carotid artery, so that the blood gushed up in his face. The third went thro the crevice of his armor at his groin, severing the femoral artery, blood spurting down his leg. He fell off the horse, and had bled to death by the time the shower of arrows from the fifty English longbowmen hidden in the rocks above the trail on both sides had ceased to rain down on them. There was a pause - the mules were all unharmed, of course - and at a signal from their scar-faced leader, rising from behind the rock where he had commanded the action, the longbowmen swarmed down on the baggage-train, knives in hand, to cut the throats of the few living members of the Hundred. They collected their marked arrows, stripped the bodies of weapons and clothing, dumping the bodies to both sides for the ravens now rising above the scene, and threw what booty they did not stow about their persons into the wagons.

            Their scar-faced leader came down from the rocks, and took Sir Brian’s horse. “They were heading for France?” he said. “Good idea.” He mounted, and signaled to his men. Climbing into the wagons, they moved off.

            The ravens descended on to the dead bodies. The ravine was still, except for their triumphant cries.

End of Chapter Seven.

End of “The Gypsy Knights.”