The Red Knight

The lists were pristine – the gravel carefully tended and unmarked, the barriers crisp and white with new lime, like a farmer’s dooryard fence except for the fancy red posts at either end, each topped with a brightly polished brass globe the size of a man’s fist.

The stands were virtually empty. The Queen sat in her seat, her ladies around her, and her young knights in the lower tiers of the seats, tossing early flowers to their favourite ladies.

There were professional spectators – a dozen men-at-arms, most from the castle garrison of archers. Word had spread quickly, and the rumour was that the king had been challenged by this foreign knight and meant to show him a thing or two.

Desiderata watched her husband sitting quietly by the little wooden shack where he had armed. He was drinking water. His hair was long and well kept, but even at this distance, she could see the grey in the dark brown.

At the other end of the lists, his opponent’s hair was an unmarked gold, the gold of sunset, of polished brass, of ripe wheat.

Ser Jean finished whatever preparations he was making and had a quiet word with his cousin, while his squire held the biggest war horse the Queen had ever seen – a beautiful creature, tall and elegant of carriage, its gleaming black hide unrelieved by marks of any kind, with a red saddle and blue furniture all pointed in red and gold. Ser Jean’s arms, a golden swan on a field of red and blue, decorated the peak of his helm, the tight, padded surcote over his coat armour, the heavy drapery over the rump of his horse, and the odd little shield, curved like the prow of a war-galley, that sat on his left shoulder.

It was a warm day. Perhaps the first truly warm day of spring, and the Queen bathed in the sun like a lioness and gave forth a glow of her own that bathed her ladies and even the knights on the seats below her.

Today the foreign knight glanced up at her quite frequently, as was her due.

She looked back at the king. By comparison, he looked small and just a little dingy. His squires were the best in the land, but he liked his old red arming cote and his many-times-repaired plate, fashioned in the mountains far across the ocean when hardened steel was a new thing and carefully repaired by his armourer ever since. He liked his old red saddle with the silver buckles, and if they left traces of black tarnish on the leather, it was still a fine saddle. Where the foreign knight was new and shone from top to toe, her king was older – worn.

His war horse was smaller too – Father Jerome, the king called him, and he was veteran of fifty great jousts and a dozen real fights. The king had other, younger, bigger horses, but when he went to fight for real he rode Father Jerome.

The herald and the master of the list called them to action. It was friendly play – the spears were bated. Desiderata saw Gaston, the foreign knight’s friend, say something to the king, pointing to his neck, with a bow.

The king smiled and turned away.

‘He’s not wearing his gorget under his aventail,’ Ser Driant said in her ear. ‘Young Gaston asks why, and requests that the king wear it.’ He nodded in approval. ‘Very proper. His man wishes to fight hard, and he doesn’t want to be accused of injuring the king. I’d feel the same way myself, if the king had challenged me.’

‘The king did not challenge him,’ Desiderata said.

Ser Driant gave her a queer look. ‘That’s not what I heard,’ he said. ‘Still, I suspect the king will tip him in the sand and that will be that.’

‘Men say that man is the best knight in the world,’ the Queen replied, a little coldly.

Ser Driant laughed. ‘Men say such things about any pretty knight,’ he said. He looked at Ser Jean, mounting with a vault and taking his lance. ‘Mind you, the man is the size of a giant.

The Queen felt a mounting unease, such as she had never experienced watching men fight. This was her place – her role. It was her duty to be impartial as the armoured figures crashed together, and to judge the best of them. To forget that one was her lover and king and the other an ambitious foreigner who had all but accused her of being barren.

She should judge only their worthiness.

But as the two men manoeuvred their horses on either side of the barrier, she felt a band tighten around her heart. He had forgotten to ask for her favour, and she almost lifted the scarf she held in her hand.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched men fight without bestowing her favour on one, or perhaps both.

Ser Jean wore a foreign type of helmet, a round-faced bascinet with a low, round brow and a heavy dog-faced visor with the Cross of Christ in brass and gold.

The king wore the high-peaked helmet more typical of Albans, with a pointy visor that men called pig-faced but which always reminded the Queen of a bird – a mighty falcon.

Even as she watched, he flicked the visor down and it closed with a click audible across the field.