The Nonexistent Knight (4 page)

I who recount this tale am Sister Theodora, nun of the order of Saint Colomba. I am writing in a convent, from old unearthed papers or talk heard in our parlor, or a few rare accounts by people who were actually present We nuns have few occasions to speak with soldiers, so what I don't know I try to imagine. How else could I do it? Not all of the story is clear to me yet. I must crave indulgence. We country girls, however noble, have always led retired lives in remote castles and convents. Apart from religious ceremonies, triduums, novenas, gardening, harvesting, vintaging, whippings, slavery, incest, fires, hangings, invasion, sacking, rape and pestilence, we have had no experience. What can a poor nun know of the world? So I proceed laboriously with this tale whose narration I have undertaken as a penance. God alone knows how I shall describe the battle, I who by God’s grace have always been apart from such matters, except for half a dozen rustic skirmishes in the plain beneath our castle which we followed as children from the battlements amid caldrons of boiling pitch. (The unburied bodies that remained to rot afterwards in the fields we would come upon in our games next summer, beneath a cloud of hornets!) Of battles, as I say, I know nothing.

Nor did Raimbaut, though he had thought of little else in all his young life. This was his baptism of arms. He sat on horseback in line awaiting the signal for attack, but did not enjoy it He was wearing too much. The coat of chain mail with its neckband, the cuirass with gorge guard and shoulder plates, the sparrow’s beak helmet from which he could scarcely see out, a robe over the armor, a shield taller than himself, a lance which he banged on comrades’ heads every time he swung it, and beneath, a horse he couldn’t see, such were the caparisons of iron covering it.

The desire to avenge the killing of his father with the blood of the Argalif Isohar had almost left him. They had told him, looking at papers on which all the formations were set down, “When the trumpet sounds you gallop ahead in a straight line with set lance until you pierce him. Isohar always fights in that point of the line. If you keep straight you’re bound to run into him, unless the whole enemy army folds up, which never happens at the first impact. Of course there can always be some little deviation, but if you don’t pierce him your neighbor is sure to.” If such was the case Raimbaut cared no more about it.

Coughing was the signal that the battle had started. In the distance he saw a cloud of yellow dust advancing, and another cloud rising from the ground as the Christian horses broke into a canter. Raimbaut began coughing. The whole Imperial army coughed and shook in its armor, quivering and shaking as it raced towards the Infidel dust, hearing more coughing getting nearer and nearer. The two dusts fused, and the whole plain rang with the echo of coughs and the clang of lances.

The aim of the first encounter was not so much to pierce the enemy (as one risked breaking one’s lance against his shield and what’s more getting flung flat on one’s face from the shock) as unhorse him by thrusting a lance between his saddle and arse at the moment of wheeling. This was a risky business, as a lance pointing downwards can easily get entangled in some obstacle or even stick in the ground and jerk a rider right out of the saddle like a catapult. So the first contact was full of warriors flying through the air gripping their lances. And side movement being difficult, since lances could not be waved far without getting into a friend’s or enemy’s ribs, there was soon such a bottleneck that it was difficult to understand a thing. Then up galloped the champions and began clearing a way through the mêlée.

Then they too found themselves facing the enemy champions, shield to shield. Duels started, but already the ground was so covered with carcasses and corpses that it was difficult to move, and when they could not reach each other they yelled insults. Here rank and intensity of insult was decisive, for according to whether offense given was mortal—to be wiped out in blood—medium or light, various reparations were laid down or even implacable hatreds transmitted to descendants. So the important thing then was to understand each other, not an easy thing between Moors and Christians and with the various Moorish and Christian languages; what did one do if along came an insult one just couldn’t understand? One might find oneself swallowing it and being dishonored for life. So interpreters took part in this phase of the battle, light-armed men swiftly mounted on fast horses which swivelled around catching insults on the wing and translating them there and then into the language of destination.

“Khar as-Sus!”

“Worms’ excrement!”

“
Mushrik! Sozo! Mozo! Enclavao! Marrano! Hijo de puta! Zabdkan! Merde!
”

These interpreters, by tacit agreement on both sides, were not to be killed. Anyway they galloped swiftly away and if it wasn’t easy in that confusion to kill a heavy warrior mounted on a charger which could scarcely move for its encrustation of armor, imagine how difficult it was with these grasshoppers. But war is war, as the saying goes, and every now and again one did catch it. Anyway, even with the excuse of knowing how to say “Son of a whore” in a couple of languages, they had to expect some risk. On a battlefield anyone with a quick hand can get good results, particularly at the right moment, before the hordes of infantry swarm over and mess up all they touch.

Infantry, being short little men, pick things up best, but knights from up on their saddles are apt to stun them with the flats of their swords and haul up the best loot for themselves. “Loot” does not mean things tom off the backs of the dead, as it takes special concentration to strip a corpse, but all that gets dropped. Since knights go into battle loaded with supplementary harness, at the first clash a mess of disparate objects falls to the ground. After that no one can think of fighting, can he? The struggle now is to gather everything up. In the evening on returning to camp the men bargain and traffic in the loot On the whole nearly always the same things pass from camp to camp and regiment to regiment in the same camp; what is war, after all, but this passing of more and more dented objects from hand to hand?

Raimbaut found all that happened quite different from what he had been told. On he rushed, lance forward, in tense expectation of the meeting between the two ranks. Meet they did but all seemed calculated for each knight to pass through the space between two enemies without his even grazing another.

For a time the two ranks continued to rush on, each in its own direction, each turning its back to the other. Then they turned and tried to come to grips, but by now impetus was lost. Who could ever find the Argalif in the middle of all that? Raimbaut found himself clashing shields with a man hard as dried fish. Neither of the two seemed to have any intention of giving way to the other. They pushed against their shields, while the horses stuck their hooves in the ground.

The Moor, who had a face pale as putty, spoke.

“Interpreter!” yelled Raimbaut “What’s he saying?”

Up trotted one of those lazybones. “He's saying you must give way to him!”

“Oh, not by my throat.”

The interpreter translated; the other replied.

“He says he’s got to go on and get a certain job done, or the battle won’t work out according to plan...”

“I’ll let him pass if he tells me where I can find Isohar the Argalif!”

The Moor waved towards a hillock and shouted. The interpreter said, “Over there on that rise to the left!” Raimbaut turned and galloped off.

The Argalif, draped in green, was staring at the horizon.

“Interpreter!”

“Here I am.”

“Tell him I’m son of the Marquis Roussillon, come to avenge my father.”

The interpreter translated. The Argalif raised a hand with fingers clenched.

“Who’s he?”

“Who’s my father? That’s your last insult!” Raimbaut bared his sword. The Argalif imitated him. He was a good swordsman. Raimbaut was already hard pressed when up came the Moor with the putty face, panting hard and shouting something.

“Stop, sir!” translated the interpreter hurriedly. “I’m so sorry, I got confused. The Argalif Isohar is on the hillock to the right! This is the Argalif Abdul!”

“Thank you! You’re a man of honor!” said Raimbaut, then moved his horse, saluted the Argalif with his sword and galloped off toward the other slope.

At the news that Raimbaut was the son of the Marquis, the Argalif Isohar said, “What’s that?” It had to be repeated more than once in his ear, very loud.

Eventually he yawned and raised his sword. Raimbaut rushed at him. And as their swords crossed doubt came over him as to whether this was Isohar either, and his impetus was rather blunted. He tried to work himself into a frenzy, but the more he hit out the less he felt sure of his enemy’s identity.

This uncertainty was nearly fatal. The Moor was pressing closer and closer when a great row went up nearby. A Moorish officer in the press of the battle suddenly let out a cry.

At this shout Raimbaut’s adversary raised his visor as if asking for a truce, and called out in reply.

“What’s he say?” Raimbaut asked the interpreter.

“He said, ‘Yes, Argalif Isohar, I’ll bring your spectacles at once!’ ”

“So it’s not him!”

“I am the Argalif Isohar’s spectacle bearer,” exclaimed his adversary. “Spectacles are instruments as yet unknown to you Christians, and are lenses to correct the sight Isohar, being short-sighted, is forced to wear them in battle, but as they’re glass a pair gets broken at every fight. I’m attached to him to supply new ones. May I therefore request that we interrupt our duel, otherwise the Argalif, weak of sight as he is, will get the worst of it.”

“Ah, the spectacle bearer!” roared Raimbaut not knowing whether to gut him in a rage or rush at the real Isohar. But what merit would there be in fighting a blind adversary?

“Do let me go, sir,” went on the optician, “as the plan of battle depends on his keeping in good health, and if he doesn’t see he’s lost!” and brandishing the spectacles he shouted back, “Here Argalif, here are the glasses!”

“No!” said Raimbaut, and slashed at the bits of glass, shattering them.

At the same instant, as if the sound of lenses in smithereens had been a sign of his end, Isohar was pierced by a Christian lance.

“Now,” said the optician, “he doesn’t need glasses to gaze at the houris in Paradise,” and off he spurred.

The corpse of the Argalif, lurched over the saddle, remained hitched to the stirrups by the legs, and the horse dragged it up to Raimbaut’s feet.

The emotion at seeing Isohar dead on the ground, contradictory thoughts assailing him—of triumph at being able finally to say his father’s blood was avenged, of doubt whether
he
had actually killed the Argalif by fracturing his spectacles and so could consider the vendetta duly consummated, of confusion at finding himself suddenly deprived of the aim which had brought him so far—all lasted only a moment. Then he felt a wonderful sense of lightness at finding himself rid of that nagging thought in the middle of battle, and able to rush about, look round, fight, as if his feet had wings.

In his fixation about killing the Argalif he had paid no attention to the order of battle, and did not even think there was any. Everything seemed new to him, and exaltation and honor seemed to touch him only now. The earth already had its crop of dead. Fallen in their armor, they lay in awkward postures, according to how their greaves and joints or other iron accouterments had settled in a heap, sometimes with arms or legs in the air. At points the heavy armor had been breached, and from its interior stuffed guts spilled out of every gash. Such ghastly sights filled Raimbaut with honor. Had he perhaps forgotten that it was warm human blood that had moved and given vigor to all those wrappings? To all except one—or did the unseizable nature of the knight in white armor seem extended over the whole field of battle?

On he spurred, anxious to face living presences, friends or foes.

He found himself in a valley, deserted apart from the dead and flies buzzing over them. The battle had reached a moment of truce, or was raging on some quite other part of the field. Raimbaut was gazing around as he rode. There was a clatter of hooves; on the crest of a hill appeared a mounted warrior. A Moor! He looked around, reined in, then spurred his horse and galloped off. Raimbaut spurred too and followed. Now he was on the hills too. In the plain he saw the Moor galloping off and vanishing among the nut trees. Raimbaut’s horse was like an arrow; it seemed to be longing for the chance of a race. The youth was pleased. Beneath those inanimate shells at last, a horse was a horse, a man a man. The Moor veered off to the right. Why? Now Raimbaut felt certain of catching up. But from the right now appeared another Moor, who jumped out of the undergrowth and barred his way. Then both infidels turned and came at him: an ambush! Raimbaut flung himself forward with raised sword and cried, “Cowards!”

One came at him, his black two-pronged helmet like a hornet. The youth parried and banged the other’s shield, but his horse shied. Now the first Moor began pressing him, and Raimbaut had to make play with shield and sword and get his horse to twist round in its tracks by pressing his knees to its sides. “Cowards!” he cried, and his rage was real, and his fight was a real fight, and the effort to hold at bay two enemies was agonizingly exhausting in bone and blood, and maybe Raimbaut must die now that he is sure the world exists, and does now know if dying is more sad or less.

Both were on him now. He backed, seizing the hilt of his sword as if stuck to it; if he lost it he was done. At that extreme moment he heard a gallop. At the sound, as at a roll of drums, both his enemies broke away. They backed, protecting themselves with raised shields. Raimbaut turned too; beside him he saw a knight of the Christian armies with a robe of periwinkle blue over his armor. A crest of long feathers also periwinkle in color waved from his helmet. Swiftly turning a light lance the warrior kept the Moors at bay.

Now they were side by side; Raimbaut and the unknown knight. The latter was still brandishing his lance. Of the two enemies one tried to feint and bounce the lance out of his hand, but the periwinkle knight at that moment put his lance into its socket on his saddle, bared his sword, and flung himself on the Infidel. They duelled. Raimbaut, seeing how lightly the unknown helper handled his sword, almost forgot everything else to sit still and look. But it was only a moment; soon the other enemy launched himself with a great clash of shields.