The King's Champion. Catherine March

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СКАЧАТЬ air. The sky spanned a cloudless blue above them and children romped in the sunshine, bursting with energy after many days confined indoors during the winter months.

      Two knights sauntered, one very fair and the other dark, looking about with interest. They conversed earnestly upon the merits of their opponents, and occasionally commented on the several attractive filles de joie today present; they smiled politely at the former, with a small bow, and grinned broadly at the latter, with a brazen wink.

      Their progress was hampered as two children suddenly burst from between a row of pavilions, striped in red and yellow and flying the banner of Lord Henry Raven of Ashton. The fair knight exclaimed and jumped back, clutching at his friend’s elbow in a warning gesture as two wooden swords chopped through the air.

      ‘Allez!’ shouted the one child, attacking the other with fierce swipes from side to side that greatly impressed the knights as they watched.

      The children were dressed identically in linen tunics and chausses, cross-gartered, and the fiercest of the child-combatants had a blue scarf tied about his head. Although smaller than his opponent, he charged down boldly with lithe, graceful strides, swinging his sword with an accurate and controlled measure that soon had his opponent stumbling and crying, ‘Pax!’ as he fell to the ground. His opponent gave a war-like whoop of triumph and promptly sat upon his fallen victim, waving his sword in a circle and announcing his victory in a gleeful tone.

      The two knights clapped and called out their admiration for such a fine display of young swordsmanship, and then the child turned and pointed a delicate chin over one shoulder, staring at them, with solemn cornflower-blue eyes.

      ‘Why, ’tis a girl!’ exclaimed the flaxen-haired knight.

      ‘Saints!’ His companion was equally amazed, ‘Have you ever seen the like, Austin?’

      Dropping to one knee, Austin Stratford cupped her chin with gentle fingers. ‘Does your mother know what you are about, little maid?’

      Without a blink of her very blue eyes she smacked his hand away with a sharp blow of her wooden sword. Austin exclaimed and leapt to his feet. He sucked his smarting knuckles whilst his friend looked on and made little attempt to smother a chuckle.

      ‘I pity the man who weds that little vixen,’ Troye de Valois stated with a taut smile.

      ‘I shall not wed!’ declared the little girl, swift and stout in her retort. ‘I shall fight in the tourneys and be champion of England, like my uncle.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Austin smiled, his eyes skimming over the perfect oval face, certain that one day she would grow into a great beauty and her fate would be otherwise. ‘And who is your uncle, if I might beg my lady’s pardon to ask?’

      ‘Ellie!’ groaned her defeated playmate, ‘let me up!’

      The girl rose lithely to her feet and offered her hand to the boy, who huffed and moaned and dusted the back of his tunic with a great show. She turned sideways and eyed the two knights, who seemed very tall to her as she craned her little neck. The one was fair and had a laughing mouth, the other was very dark, his eyes more black than brown and his silence intimidating. There was a controlled tension about him that held a hint of menace. Quickly she looked away from him and addressed herself to his more amiable friend.

      With great pride she puffed out her narrow chest and announced, ‘He is Remy St Leger, champion of England, and there is none who can best him.’

      ‘And you say he is your uncle?’ The two knights exchanged a glance.

      ‘Aye.’ She stood, leaning on one hip, her sword pointed down between her feet, clutching the hilt with her small hands, her very pose that of a young knight.

      ‘How old are you, little maid?’ asked Austin.

      ‘I shall be ten on St George’s Day.’

      He asked gravely, a wary eye on the small hands clutching her wooden sword, ‘And why would a lady want to fight, rather than wed? ’Tis no easy task being a knight.’

      She snorted derisively, her slim nose pointing to the sky as she scoffed, ‘’Tis boring being a lady! All they do is sew and eat sweetmeats and waste time on idle chatter. Why should I not participate in the joust? The German Hildegaarde something-or-other does, and there is a Turkish lady, I can’t ’member her name, she does too. And sometimes they beat the men, puny creatures that they are! Look how easily I beat Rupert. He’s my brother, you know, and two years older than me. And bigger.’

      ‘Shut up!’ Rupert cuffed her on the shoulder, his face flaring red.

      Austin hid his amusement, and turned to his friend with a smile in his eyes.

      Troye de Valois envied him his easy charm that enabled him to converse with everyone, whether they be kings or knights or ladies, or even little children. Making an effort, he stated in the boy’s defence, in his low, solemn voice that by nature held more a thread of steel than laughter, ‘Your brother is still a boy, but one day he will grow into a man. Men have much greater strength in their arms and shoulders than ladies do.’ He eyed her delicate bone structure and guessed that she would never develop the brawn of the German and the Turk. ‘Your female frame would never stand up to a man’s.’

      She misheard him and declared indignantly, ‘I am not feeble!’

      Troye backed away with hands upraised, as though in surrender to this fierce verbal assault, and Austin would have ruffled her hair had it not been bound up within the confines of her blue scarf, auburn tendrils escaping here and there. Instead he smiled and bowed to her, ‘I wish you good luck, my lady—’

      ‘Eleanor!’ a strident voice called. ‘Eleanor, where are you?’

      ‘Nurse!’ Eleanor and Rupert exclaimed in unison with round-eyed guilt, and together they ran off, scarce giving the two knights a backward glance.

      The knights watched them go and then fell into step again, the feisty little girl-warrior soon forgotten as other matters claimed their attention. Troye intended to make his mark in the tourney, and he had both talent and courage enough to do so.

      On the final day of the tournament he was drawn to ride against the famed Remy St Leger. As he waited for the signal to charge, and his horse pranced and champed against the firm rein checking him, he remembered the little girl and looked down the long length of the list. After a week of jousting it was dusty and the ground rough from the trampling of many hooves. At the far end sat St Leger on a big black Hanoverian stallion. His visor was down and he gleamed in silver-plate armour, big and solid as he sat firmly in the saddle. St Leger was thirty-four years old and Troye scarce five and twenty. By Troye’s reckoning he had been champion too long and now it was time to make way.

      ‘Laissez-aller!’ cried the Marshal, waving his banner that signalled they should charge.

      Troye touched his spurs to his horse’s flanks and gripped the lance beneath his right arm tightly. The ground trembled as the two horses galloped at each other full tilt, and the crowd on either side of the lists held their breath. The two knights were well matched, each rock-steady in the saddle, their glance unwavering through the narrow slit of their visors as they thundered towards each other. A crash of wood on steel, the rendering split of a lance, and then the dull thud as a rider was sent crashing to the ground.

      For a moment there was a stunned hush, and then a gasp of horror, СКАЧАТЬ