“Well, well!” said King Stephen under his breath. “Who knows but I may have been mistaken in the best man, after all?”
With nothing but daggers now, they must come to grips. Length of reach is valuable, even with daggers, and the poniard that Courcelle drew from its sheath at his hip was longer than the decorative toy Hugh Beringar held. King Stephen revived into active interest, and shed his natural irritation at being forced into this encounter.
“He is mad!” moaned Aline at Cadfael’s shoulder, leaning against him with lips drawn back and nostrils flaring, like any of her fighting forebears. “He had licence to kill at leisure. Oh, he is stark mad. And I love him!”
The fearful dance continued, and the sun at its zenith shortened the shadows of the two duelists until they advanced, retreated, side-stepped on a black disc cast by their own bodies, while the full heat beat pitilessly on their heads, and within their leather harness they ran with sweat. Beringar was on the defensive now, his weapon being the shorter and lighter, and Courcelle was pressing hard, aware that he held the advantage. Only Beringar’s quickness of hand and eye saved him from repeated slashes that might well have killed, and his speed and agility still enabled him at every assault to spring back out of range. But he was tiring at last; his judgment was less precise and confident, his movement less alert and steady. And Courcelle, whether he had got his second wind or simply gathered all his powers in one desperate effort, to make an end, seemed to have recovered his earlier force and fire. Blood ran on Hugh’s right hand, fouled his hilt and made it slippery in his palm. The tatters of Courcelle’s left sleeve fluttered at the edge of his vision, a distraction that troubled his concentration. He had tried several darting attacks, and drawn blood in his turn, but length of blade and length of arm told terribly against him. Doggedly he set himself to husband his own strength, by constant retreat if necessary, until Courcelle’s frenzied attacks began to flag, as they must as last.
“Oh, God!” moaned Aline almost inaudibly. “He was too generous, he has given his life away . . . The man is playing with him!”
“No man,” said Cadfael firmly, “plays with Hugh Beringar with impunity. He is still the fresher of the two. This is a wild spurt to end it, he cannot maintain it long.”
Step by step Hugh gave back, but at each attack only so far as to elude the blade, and step by step, in a series of vehement rushes, Courcelle pursued and drove him. It seemed that he was trying to pen him into a corner of the square, where he would have to make a stand, but at the last moment the attacker’s judgment flagged or Hugh’s agility swung him clear of the trap, for the renewed pursuit continued along the line of lancers, Beringar unable to break out again into the centre of the arena, Courcelle unable to get through the sustained defence, or prevent this lame progress that seemed likely to end in another corner.
The Flemings stood like rocks, and let battle, like a slow tide, flow painfully along their immovable ranks. And halfway along the side of the square Courcelle suddenly drew back one long, rapid step instead of pursuing, and tossing his poniard from him in the grass, stooped with a hoarse cry of triumph, and reached beneath the levelled lances, to rise again brandishing the sword Hugh Beringar had discarded as a grace to him, more than an hour previously.
Hugh had not even realised that they had come to that very place, much less that he had been deliberately driven here for this purpose. Somewhere in the crowd he heard a woman shriek. Courcelle was in the act of straightening up, the sword in his hand, his eyes, under the broad, streaming brow half-mad with exultation. But he was still somewhat off-balance when Hugh launched himself upon him in a tigerish leap. A second later would have been too late. As the sword swung upward, he flung his whole weight against Courcelle’s breast, locked his right arm, dagger and all, about his enemy’s body, and caught the threatening sword-arm by the wrist in his left hand. For a moment they heaved and strained, then they went down together heavily in the turf, and rolled and wrenched in a deadlocked struggle at the feet of the indifferent guards.
Aline clenched her teeth hard against a second cry, and covered her eyes, but the next moment as resolutely uncovered them. “No, I will see all, I must . . . I will bear it! He shall not be ashamed of me! Oh, Cadfael . . . oh, Cadfael . . . What is happening? I can’t see. . .
“Courcelle snatched the sword, but he had no time to strike. Wait, one of them is rising . . .”
Two had fallen together, only one arose, and he stood half-stunned and wondering. For his enemy had fallen limp and still under him, and relaxed straining arms nervelessly into the grass; and there he lay now, open-eyed to the glare of the sun, and a slow stream of red was flowing sluggishly from under him, and forming a dark pool about him on the trampled ground.
Hugh Beringar looked from the gathering blood to the dagger he still gripped in his right hand, and shook his head in bewilderment, for he was very tired, and weak now with this abrupt and inexplicable ending, and there was barely a drop of fresh blood on his blade, and the sword lay loosely clasped still in Courcelle’s right hand, innocent of his death. And yet he had his death; his life was ebbing out fast into the thick grass. So what manner of ominous miracle was this, that killed and left both weapons unstained?
Hugh stooped, and raised the inert body by the left shoulder, turning it to see where the blood issued; and there, driven deep through the leather jerkin, was the dead man’s own poniard, which he had flung away to grasp at the sword. By the look of it the hilt had lodged downwards in thick grass against the solidly braced boot of one of the Flemings. Hugh’s onslaught had flung the owner headlong upon his discarded blade, and their rolling, heaving struggle had driven it home.
I did not kill him, after all, though Beringar. His own cunning killed him. And whether he was glad or sorry he was too drained to know. Cadfael would be satisfied, at least; Nicholas Faintree was avenged, he had justice in full. His murderer had been accused publicly, and publicly the charge had been justified by heaven. And his murderer was dead; that failing breath was already spent.
Beringar reached down and picked up his sword, which rose unresisting out of the convicted hand. He turned slowly, and raised it in salute to the king, and walked, limping now and dropping a few trickles of blood from stiffening cuts in hand and forearm, out of the square of lances, which opened silently to let him go free.
Two or three paces he took across the sward towards the king’s chair, and Aline flew into his arms, and clasped him with a possessive fervour that shook him fully alive again. Her gold hair streamed about his shoulders and breast, she lifted to him a rapt, exultant and exhausted face, the image of his own, she called him by his name: “Hugh. . . Hugh. . .” and fingered with aching tenderness the oozing wounds that showed in his cheek and hand and wrist.
“Why did you not tell me? Why? Why? Oh, you have made me die so many times! Now we are both alive again . . .Kiss me!”
He kissed her, and she remained real, passionate and unquestionably his. She continued to caress, and fret, and fawn.
“Hush, love,” he said, eased and restored, “or go on scolding, for if you turn tender to me now I’m a lost man. I can’t afford to droop yet, the king’s waiting. Now, if you’re my true lady, lend me your arm to lean on, and come and stand by me and prop me up, like a good wife, or I may fall flat at his feet.”
“Am I your true lady?” demanded Aline, like all women wanting guarantees before witnesses.
“Surely! Too late to think better of it now, my heart!”
She was beside him, clasped firmly in his arm, when he came before the king. “Your Grace,” said Hugh, condescending out of some exalted private place scarcely flawed by weariness and wounds, “I trust I have proven my case against a murderer, and have your Grace’s countenance and approval.”
“Your opponent,” said Stephen, “proved your case for you, all too well.” He eyed them thoughtfully, disarmed and diverted by this unexpected apparition of entwined lovers. “But what you have proved may also be your gain. You have robbed me, young man, of an able deputy sheriff of this shire, whatever else he may have been, and however foul a fighter. I may well take reprisal by drafting you into the vacancy you’ve created. Without prejudice to your own castles and your rights of garrison on our behalf. What do you say?”