The Long Sword(66)
The German wedge wheeled neatly – they were only moving at the trot – and the centre of the wedge point was about twenty yards in front of me.
They were coming for us. Excellent tactics. Break the weakest link in the chain. Start any fight with an easy win. Twelve to three; excellent odds. And in a mêlée, not the least unchivalrous.
Their wedge had some cracks in it. If they had practised together often enough, I imagine they could have ridden about, knee behind knee, for hours, without showing a fist of daylight between their horses, with their Emperor in front, and every man echeloning away, a single unstoppable wall of horseflesh and knighthood. That was the German tactic.
But in fact, they were a dozen great nobles, and there was a horse-wide gap between Johann von Hapsburg and his brother. I’ll guess that Johann didn’t see the wheel – the turning of the whole wedge – begin, and he was late to the turn, had too far to go to catch up …
I pointed my horse’s head at the gap and put spurs to Jacques’s sides.
He exploded forward.
He did everything. Because of his sure-footed turn and his magnificent burst to the gallop, I was on Johann von Hapsburg in less time than it’s taken to say this.
I let him swing his sword at me. He hit me – hard. He put the whole weight of his strength and hips into that cut and he rocked me. The blow hit just on my left temple, and then my sword went past his head on the inside; I put my right knee into his knee – at the gallop – and my arm was around his neck and I ripped him from the saddle, just as Fiore taught. My beautiful horse threaded the gap and I let go of Johann before I shared his fate, and I was through.
Oh, but that’s not the best of it.
Fiore was on my right, and he collected the beast’s reins. Go ahead and practice that at a gallop in the tiltyard.
Nerio slammed his horse, chest to chest, into Rudolph von Habsburg as that knight turned to attack me or recover his brother’s horse, and knocked them – horse and man – to the ground – and rode on.
The crowd roared.
Have you heard a crowd roar for you, messires? It is like strong wine and love and the touch of God all in one moment.
I turned Jacques to my right, and rode along the back of the German line, even as the wedge struggled to right itself and turn about. They had passed almost up to the crowd and missed their quarry.
I gave Jacques a strong left knee and made him sidestep – we were not moving fast yet – and slammed my sword into the Emperor’s helmet as I went past him.
And so, of course, did Fiore.
And so did Nerio.
The crowd roared again. The first roar had, apparently, not been their best effort.
The three of us passed all the way across the German wedge, and cantered easily to our flagpole – the arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, gold on white. There were half a dozen unarmed squires there, and one of them grinned and grabbed Johann von Hapsburg’s horse.
People cheered, and we were up, one to nothing.
We swung around the flagpole, saluted our squires – and the Cypriotes struck the far end of the German line. We were too far from them to take part, but it was sudden and stark. I had never fought the Turks, or I would have known.
The Cypriotes fought the Turks all the time. They came in at a dead gallop, caught the Germans halted, trying to rebuild their wedge, and they knocked the end two knights down, swept up their horses, evaded the German attempts to turn the raid into a general combat, and galloped away. They had two horses.
King Peter slapped his visor open a horse-length from me. ‘Well fought!’ he shouted. Then he pulled it down and turned his horse. He held his horse for the length of his speech, half reared, perfectly collected, his weight back – he looked like a centaur. He was, in that moment, the knight I wanted to be.