The Cypriotes fell in as if they were mercenaries coming for a pay call. They seemed to gallop their horses straight into the line and de Mézzières actually turned his horse on its hindquarters, with the beast’s front feet off the ground.
We trotted into position – the last three, let me add.
The king was in the centre. We all looked at him, and he looked right, looked left.
He tossed his sword in the air – and caught it.
‘Pour lealte maintenir,’ he said. His knights cheered.
I had no way of knowing it was his motto, but I flourished my sword, and we started forward.
The Germans had pulled their wedge back together. The squires had helped the three downed knights off the field, and now their nine prepared to take on our twelve.
This time, the Cypriotes stayed together, and we had a more traditional clash. Guy le Baveux, one of King Peter’s Cypriote lords, was slammed into the dust by the German wedge, and King Peter only avoided the same fate by charging his horse breast to breast with a Bohemian knight with a black lion on his golden coat. Both horses reared, the two knights swaggered swords, and I lost it all in the dust cloud.
We were almost off the end of the German line, and Fiore, on my right, swept in to make his capture. He met his opponent – Duke Rudolph, again – sword to sword. Rudolph cut hard enough to make sparks fly, and Fiore let him have the bind, leaned forward as his horse rose, and smashed his pommel into the count’s visor, rocking the man’s head back – but the sword continued its rotation, the pommel skidded across the visor and locked across the count’s neck, and the relative motion of the two horses unseated him.
I reined in to pass behind Fiore and collected his new-won horse, but the next knight in the line, a big man on a big horse with barred black and yellow barding, grabbed at the same reins and leaned out to swing at Fiore over Von Hapsburg’s now riderless horse.
Fiore took the blow on the back of his right shoulder and momentum carried him forward and I lost him in the dust. I changed leads over to the right and came up on what would have been Fiore’s right side, and I could feel Nerio hard on my heels. Again the black and yellow knight reached across the empty saddle to cut, this time at me.
I covered, crossing my sword with his, hilt-to-hilt and close to my head. He was big and strong, and I let him press me, then I locked my free, steel-gauntleted hand on the flange of his outstretched steel elbow and used my spurs to tell Jacques to pivot on his front feet. I think I laughed aloud as I controlled his arm with my hand and my horse, dislocating his shoulder and throwing him forward over his saddle as I dropped him, dragging him over Rudolf ’s empty saddle as my horse backed. I swear to you that Jacques understood my intention all through, perhaps better than I.
I got my hand on to Duke Rudolf ’s bridle. Nerio was flank-to-flank with yet another German knight, but he had black and yellow’s reins.
I had no opponent. I had a moment – there must have been a gust of wind – and I saw that the King of Cyprus was down.
Philippe de Mézzières was locked in a steel embrace with the Emperor, and three German knights were hammering away at him while a pair of the Cypriotes I didn’t know tried to break into the circle around the king. The king’s horse was – I assume – hit with a sword or a sabaton-clad foot, because he bolted instead of standing by his master. The king was on his feet, reaching for his horse, but the animal went past his reaching hands and ran for the crowd line.
Well, I had a great desire for fame and a captured horse in my left fist. I remember crossing the two horse lengths between us, and my only fear was that someone else would get to him first.
Philippe de Mézzières twisted, the Emperor rocked back, and de Mézzières’ sword shot out and slammed into a German knight’s head, rocking him back and opening a hole.