Emaculum (The Scourge Book 3) (11 page)

A great cheer arises from the west, outside the curtain walls. Sir Simon and four other knights lead us toward the sound, across the castle bailey, through the massive postern tower on the west side until we are outside once again. We find ourselves in the lower court, a vast outdoor yard encircled by a ten-foot wall of cobbled flint. This is where the cheers originated.

A sprawling length of tiered benches has been built here. And on those benches, clapping and shouting and whistling, sit hundreds of men and women. They are not the starving masses I have seen at other castles. They are gentry and nobility. Plump and healthy, and dressed in silks and brocade.

In front of the benches lies a tilting field several hundred paces long and a hundred paces wide. A low wall of piled stones circles the entire arena, and a deep trench about as wide as a man is tall encircles the wall. A jester stands on a log at the center of the field, looking surly and pointing at the seated gentry. He sweeps his hand to encompass the crowd, pauses, then turns around and pulls down his pants. The men and women cheer again.

Simon leads us onto the tier of benches. The odor of vomit and sweat mingles with rosemary from the Hungary waters worn by the ladies. I am not certain what to think of these new Hungarian tonics that women are using to scent their bodies. The smell is pleasing, but there is a taint of artifice and strong alcohol that repels me at the same time. I brought Elizabeth a phial of these waters from France once. We sat sniffing at it and laughing for much of the night. She has yet to put it on her skin, but I catch her with the phial to her nose often.

We shuffle past the lords and ladies. Their red faces and careless movements speak of wine and honeymead. Vast quantities of it. The whole lot of them are drunk.

The jester sweeps his hand to encompass the crowd again, then turns and pulls his trousers down once more. The crowd cheers.

It is difficult to get past the spectators because of my armor. A woman shouts insults at me as I bump into her. Another man slaps my cuisses and tells me I am hindering his view.

Tristan, walking behind me, leans in close to the man and shouts above the din: “We’re terribly sorry for blocking your view of that man’s arse.”

Further on, a pretty woman sits on a man’s lap, her eyes closed, lips parted. The man’s hands are on the front of her dress, cupping her breasts, and they rock slowly.

They are fornicating.

Here, in front of everyone, they are fornicating. This is not Framlingham, it is Sodom. It is Ninevah. It is every damned village in the Bible, and I feel filthy for simply being here. I will speak to Richard quickly, and leave this loathsome place as soon as I can.

One of the woman’s bare feet rests on the shoulder of the man in front of her, and most of her leg has worked free of the silk dress she wears. She has no hose, so I can see the pale skin of her thigh. The man in front of her does not seem to notice her foot, or if he does, he does not seem to mind.

No one seems to mind. I glance around. This lewd act goes unnoticed by everyone. Except for Tristan, who grins and elbows me. Morgan sees what we are looking at and tries to shove us onward but the woman’s leg blocks my path. I step over the obstruction, as Simon did, and move on. Tristan steps over with one leg but, as he straddles her shin, he runs his finger up the sole of her foot. She flinches. Her eyes jerk open and she slaps at his armor hard enough to set it clanking, then spits at him. A moment later she arches her back and gasps as the man beneath her shifts position.

They continue.

Morgan scowls at the couple as he passes. I do not think they notice his disapproval. And if they do, I do not think they care. Zhuri places his hand against his temple, so that his fingers block the couple from view.

Simon rolls his arm in the air to hurry us along. He leads us toward a platform built into the center of the long tier of benches. A canopy, died blue and red and bearing both lions and fleur-de-lis, stretches above a carved wooden throne and six other chairs. The throne is empty. In fact, there are only two people sitting under the canopy. The first is a soldier wearing a nasal helm, layered leather jerkin, and a massive steel spaulder on one shoulder. The other is a thin blonde man with a wide board on his lap and a quill in his hand.

Simon steps onto the platform, slouches into the throne, and motions to the empty chairs. The soldier, who sits in the back corner of the platform, stares at Simon, but says nothing. The blond man does the same. They may hold their tongue at Simon’s insolence, but I bloody will not.

“I don’t care if you‘re the Pope,” I say. “Get out of Richard’s throne or I will throw you out.”

“Which Pope?” Simon replies, and it is the last shred of disrespect I can take. I step forward and reach for him. His hand darts to the hilt of his dagger. The soldier in the corner rises and points at me.

“You are known to me!” The man’s voice is thick with an Italian accent. He throws off his helmet and turns his head so I can see his cheek. “This you made, no? You remember, no?” His face bears scabs in the shape of my gauntlet’s lobstered fingers.

I made them, yes. I struck him in the face with all my strength when we were in Hugh the Baptist’s Holy Lands. He was trying to prevent our escape at the time. And I was trying to facilitate it. My shock at seeing him here freezes me. First the masked plaguers pulling the plow, and now him.

The Italian mercenary looks past me and whistles loudly, waves toward a line of soldiers a few benches down. The mailed men stand and pick their way through the drunken crowd toward us.

“I remember,” I say finally. “You were holding us prisoner. And you wanted to afflict us with plague.”

The Italian draws a short sword and raises it to within an inch of my face. “Now I going to make things in
you
face.”

Simon laughs and dangles one leg over the arm of the throne. A half dozen mailed soldiers press onto the platform. A half-dozen blades point our way.

“Put him into your arms,” the Italian calls to the soldiers.

The men look at him, then at each other. The mercenary throws his free hand into the air. “Take him. Make him not move.”

Two soldiers take hold of my arms. Tristan draws his sword but finds two blades at his throat. Morgan tries to shove the swords away but another two men take hold of his arms and he groans as his wounds are stretched. Zhuri raises his hands into the air.

“I write my name in you skin, no?” The Italian grins as he surveys my face. The tip of the mercenary’s sword touches my cheek. “And I am to tell you, I have very long name.”

EPISODE 3

Chapter 13

An explosion of trumpets rings out across the lower court. So loud that I can feel the notes in my fingertips. So loud that the Italian holding a sword to my face flinches. He glances back toward the jousting field and so do I.

The sun has burned away the low-lying clouds and its rays glimmer along the bright metal horns of no less than thirty trumpeters. A herald steps out in front of the crowd. He speaks loudly, but the lords and ladies have recovered from the shock of trumpets, and the swell of their conversations drowns his speech.

 “And therefore, at the king’s court, my brother,” says the blond man with the quill, “each man for himself, call not for your mother.”

I stare at the writer, who shrugs. “It needs a bit of work.”

 I look back at the mercenary, who grins and points his sword at me again. “The face of you
needs a bit of work
. And I am to do it.”

Sir Simon rises from the throne, lays his hand on the mercenary’s forearm. “You can’t carve him.”

“He put the hand of him into my face.” The mercenary tilts his head to show Simon the scabs on his cheek. “I get back on him.”

“You’ll have to get back on him some other time. If you touch him now, Richard will leg you.”

I do not know the term
legging
, but it means something to the Italian. His gaze flutters from Simon back to me and he takes a small step backward. “I then ask Richard if he let me to do it.”

 “Don’t be a fool. Richard won’t
let you to do it
. This man is a Knight of the Shire and a member of Parliament. You are a foul-smelling, brainless and ill-mannered peasant who amuses the king.”

“I do not smelling foul,” the Italian says, but he sheathes the short sword. “I will kill this knight. I will kill him with many blood.”

“Perhaps,” Simon replies. “But not today.”

The mercenary fixes hazel eyes on me and drags a hand over the scabs upon his cheek. He jabs his finger toward my face. “With many blood!”

Simon waves off the mail-clad soldiers and sits on the throne again. I think about Elizabeth locked away in a cathedral while I sit among two hundred drunken nobles and argue with a vengeful Italian.

“Are we here to watch a joust?” I snap. “Or to meet with King Richard?”

Simon flicks his hand as if I am a buzzing insect. “Both.” He drapes his leg over the arm of the throne again. “Richard will be with us shortly. In the meantime, do try to enjoy yourself.”

The blond man smiles at me. “Yes, enjoy yourself. Drink. Feast. Revel until you die.”

Tristan points at the writer. “There is none other.”

We all look at Tristan.

“And therefore, at the king’s court, my brother,” Tristan says, “each man for himself, there is none other.”

“I like that.” The writer strokes his lip with the feather. “There is none other. Yes, that will do. That will do.” He dips quill into inkpot and scrawls on the parchment.

“So you are writing again, Geoffrey?” Simon asks.

The writer ignores him.

“Geoffrey doesn’t want to be the court poet anymore.” Simon chuckles. “He tried to leave Framlingham two days ago, but we can’t have Richard’s favorite poet leaving us, can we?” He points. A chain binds the writer to a ring on the floor.

I look at the bound man and remember who King Richard’s court poet is.

“Chaucer?” I say. “Geoffrey Chaucer?”

He bows his head and makes flourishes with his hands. “Would that I was another, but yes, that is my name.” He sniffs the air. “I smell lavender.”

“My wife loves your poetry,” I say. “She’ll be envious she wasn’t here to meet you.”

“Never envy us,” he replies. “Never envy we at Framlingham. ‘Tis your wife I envy. She is elsewhere.”

“His wife is plagued,” Zhuri says.

“And still, I envy her.”

“Why did you try to leave Framlingham?” I ask.

“Leave, now, lest you discover,” he replies.

Simon laughs and waves off Chaucer’s reply. “A sullen child, this Geoffrey Chaucer.”

A drummer, hidden from my sight, hammers out a marching beat and calls my attention back to the field. Two knights, one with a canvas sack over his shoulder, run across the courtyard and approach a squat, tile-roofed stable that sits at one end of the tilting field. The front of the building sits only a few feet from the edge of the trench surrounding the jousting field. Planks extending from the foot of the stable entrance span the trench and lead, by a break in the inner stone wall, onto the field.

The knights take position outside the double doors and, a moment later, the trumpets silence conversation again. A lone horseman rides through the postern gate and into the lower courtyard. Strips of overlapping steel serve as barding for the horse, and these plates rattle as the animal shifts into a high-stepped prance.

The rider makes a pass in front of the benches, raising a lance into the air and receiving a smattering of cheers. He wears a suit of blackened armor, and it is perhaps the finest harness I have ever seen. The late-day sun glimmers golden across the metal and I cannot see a surface that has not been engraved. He wears a new, high-lipped species of helmet known as a frog-helm, popular with jousting knights on the Continent. Mounted on the crest of the helmet, in gilded gold, is the top half of a roaring lion’s head. And upon the head of that lion is a crown of silver.

The armor is a master’s work. Fit only for a king.

Richard, son of Edward the Black Prince, is going to joust.

I have won only two tournaments in all my years, but I have loved the sport since childhood. I lived and dreamed of the tilting yard when I was younger. The sight of Richard in his splendor, ready to risk his life in the list, rekindles my old love.

I cheer for my king. Tristan and Morgan do the same, and even Zhuri claps politely. But we are among the few. The jester has left and the men and women in the benches no longer cheer. They drink and play games, kiss and grope. Only a scattering of them look toward the field.

Richard canters past, lance high. A set of planks has been laid across the trench on the side opposite the stable, and he walks his horse across them. He trots through a break in the low stone wall and holds his position as squires pull the planks away.

There are no hurdles dividing the tilting field, and I find this very peculiar. I have never seen knights joust without a divider between them. The risk of horse collisions makes it dangerous to the point of stupidity.