The Long Sword(68)

            The king saw me and took two steps towards me. He was coming right at me, and he leaped – got his right foot into the stirrup and mounted without stopping the horse. Really, it was one of the most spectacular feats of horsemanship I’d seen, then.

            Nothing beside what followed.

            He swung himself like a door on the stirrup leather, mounting with the horse’s stride, and then – as if he’d planned it every day of his life – he reached out his right hand and struck the Emperor in the helmet with his fist, pulled his arm back, reached under the Emperor’s arm and pulled him back. De Mézzières let go his hold and got one of the Emperor’s legs and lifted – and the mightiest monarch in Europe was down in the dust.

            Nerio skimmed through the mêlée at a canter, plucked the reins out of the air, jerking the Emperor’s horse’s head savagely, provoking the great best to a lumbering gallop. The reins broke, and Nerio was left without his prize, but they were galloping along, side by side.

            Headed for the Emperor’s flag. By which I mean, the wrong way.

            There were two Cypriotes down, by that time, and a third so badly injured – broken arm, dislocated shoulder – that he was staying at the edge of the fight, trying to avoid capture. But six of the Emperor’s knights were out, and the other six were already breaking off, slamming their swords into the king’s brother Hugh and riding clear of the dust.

            Nerio was a patient hunter. He followed the Emperor’s horse across the field, penned it into a corner of the crowd, and got its bridle.

            I was riding flat out by then, because all six of the Imperial Knights had gone for Nerio. By my side were the King of Cyprus and his chancellor, and from the other edge of the field Fiore was galloping at the Germans and Swabians and Bohemians. The two Bohemian knights turned and faced us, and they were good. Better than me, I’m not ashamed to say. I locked one of them up, and he was dragging me from my saddle when the king passed his sword across the other man’s neck and pulled him off me. The other Bohemian dropped de Mézzières, which was no mean feat of arms, I can tell you.

            That left four Swabians on Nerio. But it was Nerio’s moment – he cut and turned and cut, and he had his horse’s back to the crowd, which limited the ability of the Swabians to get at him for a throw.

            By that time I was riding for him again, although I wanted to throw up into my helmet and I’d lost my sword. The king was by me.

            The second Bohemian – the one who had put de Mézzières down – was at our heels.

            They were hammering Nerio as if they were armourers and he needed to be forged. Ever seen three master bladesmiths work a blade together? That’s how they pounded him, and yet he was as light as air, dancing under them. He took blows, but he gave them, too.

            I came up on a knight in red and blue, caught his sword hand from behind and beside him, and disarmed him as if he’d passed me the blade. I tried to throw it over his head, and he slammed his fist into my visor, and I bent back like a bow – he was a puissant man. I lost a moment, but in that time the king hit him, and I recovered my seat – Jacques had danced clear of the fight, may God care for that horse.

            My nose was broken inside my helmet, and blood was flowing over the cloth of the padding of my aventail and down my breastplate and my coat armour. The pain was blinding. But I could see Nerio’s green and gold, and I got my horse to do the work for me. I put spurs to Jacques – he didn’t deserve that, but I was hurt and in a hurry, and Jacques exploded in outraged innocence, put his head down and crashed into one of the Swabians with a sound like an army of tinkers doing battle with an army of wooden spoons.

            The Swabian reeled in his saddle, tried to regain his seat –

            Fiore stripped him from the saddle as easily as a conjuror makes a scarf vanish. One moment there was a knight, and the next, there was not. Nerio still had the Emperor’s horse. He was now free, and he turned and began to gallop for our flag, a bowshot away. There wasn’t an imperial knight on the field to stop him that I could see.