A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock

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СКАЧАТЬ were just giving the Railway Knight a good shove to set him off on his career down the lists, but at the last moment one of them managed to twitch off the piece of sacking.

      The metallic bellow that sounded when the shield was revealed was louder than the galloping hooves of the dark bay and the hiss of wheels on rails. It sounded like some furious and gigantic elephant in a cave. It took us all a moment to realise that the bellow was coming from inside the helmet of the Knight of the Black Tower. As he bellowed, he drove his horse towards the Railway Knight at a speed that looked suicidal. When his lance struck the Railway Knight’s shield square on, the force splintered the lance like kindling and rocked the wooden rider. The artificial horse trundled on to the end of its track. The rider reined in the bay at the end of the list with a force that brought his forelegs off the ground, then spun him round like a circus trick-rider. He rode across the grass, over a flowerbed and straight at the back of the tavern as if he intended to propel himself and his horse inside. The spectators on the roof had been too stunned by his bellow to applaud what had, after all, been a very accurate hit. Now some started shouting at the rider to stop and others screamed. Only one of them seemed unalarmed. Miles Brinkburn sat there with a smile on his face like a child at a pantomime.

      Stephen Brinkburn drew his horse up by the steps that led to the spectators’ platform, dropped the reins and began taking off his helmet. It revealed a face white with fury, jaw set. He dropped the helmet, flung himself out of the saddle and– still in armour–started clanking up the steps to the platform. By then, some of his friends had caught up with him.

      ‘Leave it, Stephen, he’s not worth it.’

      ‘For God’s sake, Stephen, you’ll get into the newspapers.’

      He took no notice of them. Miles Brinkburn had left his seat now and was standing at the top of the steps, the smile still on his face. From several steps down, Stephen launched himself at his brother. For a man encumbered with metal plates, it was an astounding feat of athleticism or fury. Miles hadn’t expected it and was knocked off his feet. The two of them slithered all the way back down the steps, Stephen clanking and Miles yelling something about taking a joke. They hit the ground with Miles underneath. Stephen aimed a punch at him with a gauntleted hand that would have knocked him senseless if it had connected, but one of Stephen’s friends managed to push it aside at the last moment so that it clanged against the bottom step, knocking splinters out of it. One of the splinters pierced Miles’s face, just below the eye socket, drawing blood. He yelled, managed to pull himself out from under his brother’s weight, struggled upright and delivered a kick to Stephen’s jaw. Stephen saw it coming and rolled aside so that the kick struck the back of his neck and was partly deflected by armour plating. As Miles drew his foot back for another try, Stephen grabbed his ankle so Miles hit the ground again.

      They lay there for a moment, panting and exhausted, their faces only inches apart. Blood was pouring down Miles’s face and on to his teeth, his lips drawn back in a snarl. No pretence about jokes now. Stephen’s expression was intent, almost blank. It seemed a battle out of space and time, like a tiger fighting some plated monster from a prehistoric era. The sheer oddity of it must have paralysed the friends surrounding them, because after that one attempt to intervene they’d stood gaping, mouths open. At first they might have regarded it as part of the afternoon’s diversion, but now raw hatred was in the air, like the smell of blood. Miles rolled over, grabbed two handfuls of Stephen’s hair and started thumping his head against the ground. Stephen’s hands clawed for Miles’s throat. One of the friends let out a shrill yell.

      ‘Stop them, somebody. They’ll kill each other.’

      Up to that point, Amos Legge had been watching with the air of a man who’d seen worse. In his book, if the gentry wanted to fight among themselves, that was up to them. Now, moving in his usual unhurried way, he pushed through the crowd of friends and stood over the two writhing bodies.

      ‘That’s enough. Just calm yourselves down now.’

      I’d heard him use exactly the same tone in parting a couple of fighting terriers in a stable yard. The sheer solidity and calmness of him froze the two men. He bent down, untwined Miles’s fingers from his brother’s hair, set him on his feet like a nursemaid dealing with a fractious child and delivered him into the hands of a group of friends.

      ‘Take him inside and get that face sponged off.’

      He watched as they walked him into the building, then hauled Stephen to his feet.

      ‘You all right then, sir? Best get out of that armour so they can take the dints out of it.’

      Like a man in a daze, Stephen clanked off with another group of friends. The rest of the crowd gradually melted away, though some of them still looked shaken. I rode over to Amos, who’d started collecting up lances as if nothing had happened.

      ‘Has Stephen Brinkburn gone mad?’ I said.

      ‘Well, he’s not very pleased at the moment, is he?’

      ‘Really mad, I mean.’

      ‘Not that I’ve heard. His dad is though, so they say.’

      ‘He seemed calm enough before the Railway Knight started. Did something about that annoy him?’

      The wooden horse and rider stood alone at the end of the list, abandoned by the servants who’d run to watch the fight like everybody else. I rode over to it, Amos walking beside me.

      ‘Fair dinted the shield, he has,’ Amos said.

      I looked at it.

      ‘Oh God, that’s why.’

      Amos looked puzzled.

      ‘Just a copy of his own shield, isn’t it?’

      A black tower on a white ground. Stephen Brinkburn would have seen his own device speeding towards him, but something else as well. A black diagonal bar that had not been on Stephen Brinkburn’s shield cut across the one carried by the Railway Knight from left to right.

      ‘It’s the baton sinister,’ I said.

      ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

      Amos’s many abilities did not include heraldry. I was not much better myself, but knew enough to recognise that black bar. It was the heralds’ sign for a man of illegitimate birth. I explained to Amos and he gave a whistle.

      ‘And he thinks his brother did that?’

      ‘Yes, and he’s probably right. Did you see the grin on Miles Brinkburn’s face? I suppose he’d bribed one of the servants to substitute the shield.’

      ‘So he’s telling the world their mother was no better than she should be,’ Amos said. ‘Not surprising he got upset.’

      I didn’t answer, thinking of that metal fist so nearly smashing into Miles Brinkburn’s unprotected face. It looked as if what I’d been told was true, and I didn’t like it.

      ‘I’ll ride back with you, if you’re going,’ Amos said.

      As usual, he’d picked up my mood and sensed that I wanted to get away from there. I said I should like that, please, and he went to fetch the roan.

      It took him time because one of his other jousting pupils wanted to speak to him, so it was about twenty minutes later when we rode towards the gate on to СКАЧАТЬ