“See to it,” said Cadfael morosely, “that you do not fail me.”
“No dread,” said Hugh. “I’m shriven white as a March lamb.” His voice was even and reflective. “I shall never be readier. And your arm will be seconding mine.”
At every stroke, thought Cadfael helplessly, and doubted that all these tranquil years since he took the cowl had really made any transformation in a spirit once turbulent, insubordinate and incorrigibly rash. He could feel his blood rising, as though it was he who must enter the lists.
Courcelle. rose from his knee and followed his accuser into the square. They took station at opposite corners, and Prestcote, with his marshal’s truncheon raised, stood between them and looked to the king to give the signal. A herald was crying aloud the charge, the name of the challenger, and the refutation uttered by the accused. The crowd swayed, with a sound like a great, long-drawn sigh, that rippled all round the field. Cadfael could see Hugh’s face clearly, and now there was no smiling, it was bleak, intent and still, eyes fixed steadily upon his opponent.
The king surveyed the scene, and lifted his hand. The truncheon fell and Prestcote drew aside to the edge of the square as the contestants advanced to meet each other.
At first sight, the contrast was bitter. Courcelle was half as big again, half as old again, with height and reach and weight all on his side, and there was no questioning his skill and experience. His fiery colouring and towering size made Beringar look no more than a lean, lightweight boy, and though that lightness might be expected to lend him speed and agility, within seconds it was clear that Courcelle also was very fast and adroit on his feet. At the first clash of steel on steel, Cadfael felt his own arm and wrist bracing and turning the stroke, and swung aside with the very same motion Beringar made to slide out of danger; the turn brought him about, with the arch of the town gate full in view.
Out of the black hollow a girl came darting like a swallow, all swift black and white and a flying cloud of gold hair. She was running, very fleetly and purposefully, with her skirts caught up in her hands almost to the knee, and well behind her, out of breath but making what haste she could, came another young woman. Constance was wasting much of what breath she still had in calling after her mistress imploringly to stop, to come away, not to go near; but Aline made never a sound, only ran towards where two gallants of hers were newly launched on a determined attempt to kill each other. She looked neither to right nor left, but only craned to see over the heads of the crowd. Cadfael hastened to meet her, and she recognised him with a gasp, and flung herself into his arms.
“Brother Cadfael, what is this? What has he done? And you knew, you knew, and you never warned me! If Constance had not gone into town to buy flour, I should never have known . . .”
“You should not be here,” said Cadfael, holding her quivering and panting on his heart. “What can you do? I promised him not to tell you, he did not wish it. You should not look on at this.”
“But I will!” she said with passion. “Do you think I’ll go tamely away and leave him now? Only tell me,” she begged, “is it true what they’re saying — that he charged Adam with murdering that young man? And that Giles’s dagger was the proof?”
“It is true,” said Cadfael. She was staring over his shoulder into the arena, where the swords clashed, and hissed and clashed again, and her amethyst eyes were immense and wild.
“And the charge — that also is true?”
“That also.”
“Oh, God!” she said, gazing in fearful fascination. “And he is so slight. . . how can he endure it? Half the other’s size. . . and he dared try to solve it this way! Oh, Brother Cadfael, how could you let him?”
At least now, thought Cadfael, curiously eased, I know which of those two is “he” to her, without need of a name. I never was sure until now, and perhaps neither was she. “If ever you succeed,” he said, “in preventing Hugh Beringar from doing whatever he’s set his mind on doing, then come to me and tell me how you managed it. Though I doubt it would not work for me! He chose this way, girl, and he had his reasons, good reasons. And you and I must abide it, as he must.”
“But we are three,” she said vehemently. “If we stand with him, we must give him strength. I can pray and I can watch, and I will. Bring me nearer — come with me! I must see!”
She was thrusting impetuously through towards the lances when Cadfael held her back by the arm. “I think,” he said, “better if he does not see you. Not now!”
Aline uttered something that sounded like a very brief and bitter laugh. “He would not see me now,” she said, “unless I ran between the swords, and so I would, if they’d let me-No!” She took that back instantly, with a dry sob.
“No, I would not do so to him. I know better than that. All I can do is watch, and keep silence.”
The fate of women in a world of fighting men, he thought wryly, but for all that, it is not so passive a part as it sounds. So he drew her to a slightly raised place where she could see, without disturbing, with the glittering gold sheen of her unloosed hair in the sun, the deadly concentration of Hugh Beringar. Who had blood on the tip of his sword by then, though from a mere graze on Courcelle’s cheek, and blood on his own left sleeve below the leather.
“He is hurt,” she said in a mourning whisper, and crammed half her small fist in her mouth to stop a cry, biting hard on her knuckles to ensure the silence she had promised.
“It’s nothing,” said Cadfael sturdily. “And he is the faster. See there, that parry! Slight he might seem, but there’s steel in that wrist. What he wills to do, he’ll do. And he has truth weighting his hand.”
“I love him,” said Aline in a soft, deliberate whisper, releasing her bitten hand for a moment. “I did not know until now, but I do love him!”
“So do I, girl,” said Cadfael, “so do I!”
They had been two full hours in the arena, with never a break for breath, and the sun was high and hot, and they suffered, but both went with relentless care, conserving their strength, and now, when their eyes met at close quarters over the braced swords, there was no personal grudge between them, only an inflexible purpose, on the one side to prove truth, on the other to disprove it, and on either side by the only means left, by killing. They had found out by then, if they had been in doubt, that for all the obvious advantages on one side, in this contest they were very evenly matched, equal in skill, almost equal in speed, the weight of truth holding a balance true between them. Both bled from minor wounds. There was blood here and there in the grass.
It was almost noon when Beringar, pressing hard, drove his opponent back with a sudden lunge, and saw his foot slip in blood-stained turf, thinned by the hot, dry summer. Courcelle, parrying, felt himself falling, and threw up his arm, and Hugh’s following stroke took the sword almost out of his hand, shivered edge to edge, leaving him sprawled on one hip, and clutching only a bladeless hilt. The steel fell far aside, and lay useless.
Beringar at once drew back, leaving his foe to rise unthreatened. He rested his point against the ground, and looked towards Prestcote, who in turn was looking for guidance to the king’s chair.
“Fight on!” said the king flatly. His displeasure had not abated.
Beringar leaned his point into the turf and gazed, wiping sweat from brow and lip. Courcelle raised himself slowly, looked at the useless hilt in his hand, and heaved desperate breath before hurling the thing from him in fury. Beringar looked from him to the king, frowning, and drew off two or three more paces while he considered. The king made no further move, apart from gesturing dourly that they should continue. Beringar took three rapid strides to the rim of the square, tossed his sword beneath the levelled lances, and set hand slowly to draw the dagger at his belt.
Courcelle was slow to understand, but blazed into renewed confidence when he realised the gift that was offered to him.