The Tournament of Blood (6 page)

‘Anyway,’ Odo continued, moving uneasily in his seat as he felt the force of Baldwin’s gaze, ‘not long afterwards I met an English lord who accepted me into his retinue,
for he missed English songs and tunes. With my flute-playing and my experiences on the battlefield, it was easy to win a post as herald. Who better could a lord gain than someone like
me?’

‘Who was that?’

‘Hugh Despenser the Elder,’ Odo said, and then chuckled at Baldwin’s startled expression. ‘I know – many don’t like the man, but I found him a good
master.’

‘Perhaps, but he is no friend of Lord de Courtenay.’

‘No. That is why I told Lord de Courtenay right away about my service to Lord Despenser,’ Odo grinned. ‘I came clean about it – yet there is no trouble. Lord de Courtenay
is now my lord.’ He paused. ‘A herald must tread a difficult path sometimes. When my lord Hugh returned to England this year, I came with him. I had witnessed enough death and fighting
abroad. It seemed like a good time to return and share my knowledge.’

Baldwin was curious. ‘And what sort of knowledge would that be?’

‘Ah well, have you seen the new craze for weapons in Europe? And mercenaries from Germany now wear plate armour.’

‘Like an English coat of plates?’

‘No. Where we use interlocking plates to cover our chests, the Germans use one plate alone. I have heard that in Benevento some years ago the Germans charged a stronger force of
Provençals and were winning the day because their armour was so strong it was proof against all their weapons. It was only when some sharper-eyed Provençal saw a gap beneath the
armpit of these knights that the Provençals could turn their enemies aside. There was a great cry of “
À l’estoc!
”, “
At the point!
”, and
they began to sweep through the enemy.’

‘A hole under the arms?’ Baldwin enquired doubtfully.

‘Yes. Where the breast- and back-plates met there was a gap, and there a man might stab a sword. Bear it in mind, should a heavily armoured German ever attack you!’

‘Interesting. Still, it will make you a much sought-after herald. A man with knowledge of foreign customs and weapons is always attractive. You are happy to be home?’

Odo pulled a face. ‘Well, you know, I sat upon my horse on the way here today and stared about me at the countryside, and do you know what I saw?’

Baldwin shook his head.

‘Green. Everywhere I looked, the land was green. Verdant, healthful, with glorious and riotous plantlife on every side. Where there weren’t trees, there was grass – all over
the place. And do you know what struck me?’

‘No.’

‘For all this grass to have grown, for all these trees, for all the flowers, there must have been plenty of sodding rain! Yes, it pisses down all the time here!’

The planning for the tournament at Oakhampton had been set in train weeks before the event was due to start. Messengers had to reach all the wide domains of Lord de Courtenay:
knights from Cornwall to Carlisle received invitations and either groaned because of the journey they must undertake or crowed with delight at the thought of the money and renown they could
win.

At his castle in Gidleigh, Sir Richard Prouse took the note and gave it to his priest, listening with a set face to the cleric’s slow reading. When he had finished, the priest gave him a
sympathetic glance over the top of the sheet, but Sir Richard ignored him, turning his back while he considered. He had no desire to take the man into his confidence. He didn’t trust the
feeble, weak-minded fool enough to enlighten him about his own innermost feelings. Dismissing the messenger and curtly telling his priest to seek out food and ale for the fellow, Sir Richard limped
slowly to his upstairs chamber.

A tournament; another
damned
tournament, and he was invited to witness the ‘festivities’.

It was because of tournaments that the castle was built upon debts and mortgages. That was his father’s legacy: a place without the finance to support it. All he could have used was bound
up under other people’s control, like that whore’s cub Benjamin, the money-lender who had fleeced his estates after his father died. If it wasn’t for him, Sir Richard could have
come into his estates with some dignity, but no! Benjamin had been determined to take all he could. He had an English name, but in terms of his business dealings he was as much a thief as a
Venetian!

That was the trouble with jousting. If a man became hooked on the thrill he could gamble away his entire inheritance. Many a man depended upon his wife’s financial acumen to protect lands
and property. A knight was no use if his sword and charger were in pawn to a usurer. And Sir Richard’s father had been completely hooked on the sports.

Whereas Sir Richard perpetually wore a strained, anxious expression and with his deepset eyes under his dark hair looked older than his almost thirty years, his father had appeared much younger
than his thirty-four years merited when he died; he was a cheery, pleasant, open-faced man who accepted the blows fate dealt him with a calm resignation or charming self-effacement but, like any
gambler, believed that the next joust would recoup his losses. In part it was his very assurance and easy manner that had attracted so many women to him. Sir Richard knew all too well how other
men’s wives would look to Sir Godwin and invite him to their beds. Especially at tournaments when they could be bowled over by the handsome knight’s easy flattery.
Courtesy
,
Sir Richard sneered to himself. That was what they called it, those self-righteous arses in the nobility; if not they called it
chivalry
, as if that excused a man who persuaded a woman to
ignore her marriage vows and lie with him. Sir Richard himself could exercise all the courtesy in the world and never win a woman’s heart. Not with his disabilities.

If his father hadn’t died, maybe he could have grown to respect him. He often wondered about that – whether if he had come to know Sir Godwin a little better he could have learned
even to
love
him. Instead all he could see was the gross foolishness of his rumbustious lifestyle, the drinking and whoring, the madness of a man who lost so much money he couldn’t
afford the best arms to protect himself, and who died for the lack.

Sir Richard had witnessed his father’s death at Exeter. It was an unfortunate mace blow – misaimed, it didn’t strike Sir Godwin a ringing buffet on the centre of his helmet as
intended, but glanced down the side until it caught his shoulder. It was the kind of blow that all knights were used to, one which would bruise but shouldn’t incapacitate a man with full
armour, yet all could see at once that Sir Godwin was badly wounded. He fell back as if stunned, then stumbled. The spectators saw him put down his sword as if he wished to surrender, then let his
blade fall to the ground, grabbing for his helm. He tripped, still desperately clawing at the steel of the helmet, and then there was a shout from the crowds as someone saw the blood seeping from
beneath his helm.

Soon everyone could see that the fallen knight was dying. Squires and heralds ran to him from all over the field while Sir Godwin’s opponent let his mace fall and lifted off his own
helmet, gazing at the dying man with bemusement, wiping his hair from his brow. Then someone managed to remove Sir Godwin’s helmet and all could see the bright blood pumping.

Afterwards they pieced together what had happened. The spiked mace had caught the junction of helmet and mail tippet, and a rivet had sheared inside the helmet. It was bad luck, everyone said,
nothing more: the rivet had shot away and the flap of steel it held in place had been exposed, slicing through Sir Godwin’s neck like a dagger and opening his jugular.

He could still see his father’s body lying in a lake of blood, limbs moving lazily, mouth opening and closing, the blood dribbling now, while his mother gripped his shoulder with fingers
of steel. All about them men clamoured noisily, some sombrely making the sign of the cross, others baying for the blood of the victor. It was clear that his opponent, the other knight, was in
danger, and a small group of squires surrounded him and hastened him from the field when the crowd turned nasty, folks pressing forward to the barriers. Sir Godwin was popular, known to all the
watchers in the stands, and his killer was not.

Sir Richard had been a youthful squire of only some fourteen summers then, back in 1306, and in the years that followed, he had been forced to attend several other tournaments in order to win
his spurs as a knight, but that had all ended in 1316 at the tournament in Crukerne when he was twenty-four. Since then he hadn’t been able to participate, of course, and he tended to try to
avoid them. He saw them as the frivolous pursuits of the foolish and indolent. His time was too taken up with building up the profits of his estates.

It was fortunate that Sir Richard’s mother, of blessed memory, had been a talented woman and skilled with finance. She had scrimped and saved, juggling the profits of the estates in an
attempt to keep the place afloat. His mother was no fool, thank God, and she was, like so many women, a good manager of money, but even so the place soaked up his treasure like a sponge. Matters
were beginning to improve and Sir Richard had managed to qualify for knighthood when he was nineteen, but then came the disastrous famine of 1316, and he had been forced to borrow money again.
Another visit to Benjamin; another crippling debt. And if 1317 was little better, 1318 was a disaster, and not only personally. There simply were not enough villeins to support the place and all
their efforts were needed to keep Sir Richard solvent.

Gidleigh was only a tiny castle, little more than a tower with a wooden fortification encircling it for protection from wild animals, but he wouldn’t see it taken from him. It was all his
father had left him. Sir Richard had no need of a great household. Only those who aped great lords needed the hangers-on, and Sir Richard was happy to live the life of a quiet rural knight. He had
enough money now, just, to support himself if he lived frugally, and that was why he objected to attending tournaments. If he was to attend, surely he would have to display those qualities expected
of knights, and that would mean he must pawn his belongings again, perhaps even his best pewter.

There was little enough left now, since Benjamin the Usurer had taken all he could. Sir Richard spat a curse at the ‘foul offspring of a leprous whore’ but it didn’t ease his
loathing for the banker.

At least the poxed bastard couldn’t do the same to anyone else now. Not that Benjamin alone deserved Sir Richard’s detestation. Others had helped destroy him. Others deserved his
revenge. Especially Hal Sachevyll and his foul lover Wymond Carpenter. And Sir John, of course. Sir John of Crukerne, who had killed Sir Richard’s father with that mace-blow and then helped
destroy Sir Richard himself when he was crippled.

He bunched a fist and brought it down on a table, trying in vain to vent his rage – but it was no good. It never was. His frustration was caused by his body’s limitations and all he
knew now was a sense of impotence at the injustice of it all. Sir John, Wymond and Hal had done this to him. And now he must go to another
hastilude
to witness their so-called skills. He
glanced with hatred at the paper in his hand. Much though he’d like to ignore it, he couldn’t. He would have to go all the way to Oakhampton. Well, it could have been worse. Lord de
Courtenay could have asked everyone to visit him in one of his castles farther north. At least Oakhampton wasn’t too far.

Although with his ruined body it would take him long enough to travel even that distance in his coach.

‘Who is it from, Baldwin?’ asked his wife Jeanne when she entered the room a few minutes later. Edgar had taken the soggy Odo from the hall to the kitchen to eat
his fill, and she found Baldwin still contemplating the paper with a dubious expression.

‘Simon,’ he said. Jeanne crossed the room and sat near the window so that the light shone clearly upon her needlework. Baldwin smiled at her, but then his face hardened as he read
the note. ‘He’s organising a tournament.’

Jeanne caught his tone of voice and sighed, pinning her needle into the cloth and leaving it there. ‘And?’

‘Hmm?’

‘I said, “And?”. You have a face that would curdle cream, Baldwin. What is it he is suggesting? Oh, I understand! He invites you to go along and help! That means travelling
miles to some wind-swept and chilly field.’

‘Yes, he has asked me to join him,’ her husband admitted, ‘and to help with the tournament. Thank God I don’t need to participate at my age.’

‘Wouldn’t you secretly like to?’

‘A
hastilude
is dangerous enough when you are young and fit.’ He patted his growing belly. ‘It would be lunacy for me to tempt God by pitting myself against men half
my age.’ More seriously he added, ‘And I want to see our child growing.’

She touched the silver crucifix at her neck. ‘Let’s just pray it is born safe and healthy,’ she said. ‘When is the jousting to be?’

‘Not for a while. Late June.’

‘You should see to your armour, then. There will be events or feasts where you will be expected to wear it.’

‘Jeanne, I’m sure I won’t need to worry about that! Lord Hugh would hardly expect a man of my age to take up arms and tilt before him.’

‘It would be better to be safe than be forced into a course and find that your armour doesn’t fit you any more,’ she said firmly and rose to her feet. Usually an elegant,
slender woman with the pale complexion and red-gold hair of the north, she had to puff and blow as she levered herself upwards. As was his wont recently, Baldwin went to her side and helped her
with a hand under her armpit.

‘Thank you,’ she gasped. ‘It is hard work to get up now. Oh! And it aches so much! I shall tell Edgar to see to your arms and armour. I would worry else that you could be in
danger.’

He watched her rubbing at her groin with a worried frown. This was his first child, and the tournament held little terror for him compared to the thought of what his wife must soon endure. It
was hideous, all the more so since one of his villeins had recently died in childbirth. Jeanne was his first wife and he had only been married a year; the thought that he might lose her was
appalling. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said gruffly.