The Tournament of Blood

Chapter Six

The man called Philip Tyrel was in a lousy mood when he walked into the field. Later than he had intended, tired from his long journey from Exeter to Oakhampton, all he really wanted was a comfortable bed and pot of cool ale to soothe his exhausted limbs, but he must first put up his small tent, see to his horse and prepare for the jousting.

It took less time than he had feared. Soon he repaired to the market and once he had a quart of ale inside him with a beef pie to keep it company, he began to feel more human, but his feeling of glumness remained.

His tiredness wasn’t caused solely by the journey to get here. This lassitude was a manifestation of his decay. All creatures died sooner or later, their bodies rotting until only the bones remained, but for his part he knew he had begun to die on the day he had seen his wife crushed to death. He craved the peace of the grave. It was so long since he had known comfort or true rest, and his spirit was flagging.

After killing Benjamin he had felt so good it was as though a rush of fresh vigour had sunk into his very marrow, as if he had found himself, miraculously, ten years younger. He could almost think that some form of energy had been absorbed by him from the man whom he had killed. An alchemist he had once spoken to in Rome had hinted of an emanation given off by living beings, something that only occultists and the trained knew of, and it was from this, he had said, that the secret of eternal life could be determined – but the fellow had been drunk, and his discourse soon sank into incoherent rambling.

Perhaps it was not so fanciful a concept. He had heard that a man who took the life of another gained a little of the dead man’s power, and that was certainly his own experience. His sight had never been so clear, his limbs so strong, his hearing so acute as after Benjamin’s execution. His very soul felt invigorated.

Could it be that when a man ended another’s life, this was always the result? he wondered. If so, any killer must kill again, for no one would be able to resist the addictive temptation to repeat the experience. If a man enjoyed such a sense of revitalisation after killing and subsequently found himself like this, enfeebled once more as his body continued its journey to the grave, there must be a constant urge to kill afresh and renew oneself.

But no power on earth could renew his life. Since the terrible day sixteen long years ago, when his wife and two young children had been taken from him, he had travelled regularly. Battles, tournaments, quests, he had thrown himself into them all hoping to win some ease, and if not, death. Except he had failed. He had gained a certain renown, but it had not helped. His grief was too deeply ingrained in him. He knew that only death could excise the pain.

As his thoughts grew gloomy, the crowds made him claustrophobic. He turned away from the people and walked quietly to the river, standing near a great oak and gazing at the rippling waters. A lick of sunlight caught the back of his neck like a soft kiss, and he smiled sadly, recalling that last kiss on that last day. If only he had remained with them. It would have been good to have died at the same time.

He sighed and threw a stone into the waters.

Benjamin’s death was not the same. The man had broken God’s laws: committing usury and causing deaths. If he was any other man, if he was a peasant and had been responsible for so many deaths, he would have been executed. But no, his crimes were ignored because he was wealthy. At least he had finally paid the price of his unbearable greed. Perhaps that was the reason for the sudden burst of dynamism that flooded Philip after the event – it was God’s way of rewarding him, to show that Benjamin had deserved his fate. Revenge was justifiable.

If the banker had only been guilty of usury, Philip would have been able to forgive him, but that wasn’t his sole crime. In his insatiable hunger for money, he had maximised his profits with his accomplices by skimping on the wood they had acquired to build the ber frois, the grandstands, at the tournament at Exeter in 1306. Benjamin had been a member of a trio consisting of a builder, an architect and himself as financier, who helped set out tournament fields, to construct the stands, the barriers, weapon rests and so on. Benjamin paid suppliers for the materials, working to a budget which the tournament organiser agreed with him, and if he and his friends scrimped and saved on materials, they could pocket the difference.

That was why Benjamin’s stands had collapsed, why Benjamin had to die. Because he had charged for the best timbers but had used the cheapest, and when people filled the stand, the stand fell.

Now Benjamin too was dead, punished for his greed.

Not that it would bring back those who had died; nor could it renew the ruined lives of the survivors. Philip wiped away the tear that smeared his sight, and with an effort smothered his emotions before they could overwhelm him. He had work to do.

Walking back the way he had come, he continued beyond the armourers towards the field. There, he cast a professional eye over the stands, nodding at the size and siting. All looked well enough at first glance, but then he caught sight of a rotten board panelling a side-wall.

He walked over and touched it; the wood felt damp, as though rot was eating into it. Such timber should never have been used. He only hoped that the boards which formed the flooring were of better quality. Putting out his hand, he touched the wood again to prove to himself that this was no figment of imagination, that his mind was not deteriorating. His every sense was heightened, and before his fingers encountered the chilly wetness he could smell the disease in the planks.

A shiver rattled its way through his body and he was struck with a sensation of freezing, as if he had been instantaneously transferred to winter and left naked, standing in snow. Then a bird called out a shrill tune and he felt the sudden warmth thrill him as if God had chosen that moment to bestow a smile upon him.

He couldn’t be sure, but how many carpenters were there who specialised in tournaments? Perhaps he could soon have his revenge on a second man. One who was even more directly culpable than the money-lender.

There was one way to verify his impression. He walked to the ale-sellers and gazed upon the drinkers, but his target wasn’t there, so he returned to the battlefield and stared about him. Then he saw the carpenter. Up near a rack of lances, Philip spotted him, bent at his task and he knew he had found his second victim.

Strolling towards the castle, Sir Baldwin felt the holiday atmosphere that pervaded the place. For a while, enjoying the sight of flowers at the hedges, the cheery cries of traders and hucksters, the teasing and ribald comments passed by men to women and returned, he could forget that the purpose of this festive occasion was a series of fights, many of which would inevitably be bloody, possibly even fatal.

He had left his servant Edgar in charge of his cavalcade. Horses, carts and men were everywhere fighting to keep together in the crowd. Now Baldwin was in the midst of a stream of wagons and carts, with only the protection of his small riding sword. It was almost new, but he was delighted by it. The blade was a fabulous peacock blue, and inscribed upon one side was BOAC, standing for Beati Omnipotensque Angeli Christi, meaning ‘blessed and omnipotent are the angels of Christ’, while on the reverse was the small cross of the Knights Templar. The two, he felt, were charms as powerful as any prayer or scrap of paper sold by a pardoner.

Many folk were drinking freely from skins and one man was so drunk he fell to the roadside and rolled into the river with a loud hiccup. Baldwin was concerned that he might drown, but two other travellers reached down and rescued him, one amused, the other loudly proclaiming his fury at being forced to get his best velvet coat wet to ‘save a drunken sot who’ll probably be dead in a few days anyway, and it’ll be a good thing for all of us when he does bleeding well die and stops being such a nuisance to his fellows.’

The castle lay a half-mile or so further upriver from the town, and Baldwin studied it as he approached, eyeing the improvements.

This was Lord Hugh’s main post on the road that led from Exeter to Cornwall, and the last time Sir Baldwin had been here, many years before, its dilapidation had been all too evident. During Lord Hugh’s minority, from 1292 to 1297, it had been maintained by the King, and although Lord Hugh had been saddened by its condition when he saw how badly it had fallen into disrepair, there had been little he could do until he came into his inheritance.

As soon as Lord Hugh was twenty-one, he took over his estates, determined that the castle should be renovated and made fully habitable again. From what Baldwin could see, he had achieved a great deal. The timber bridge over the stream that bounded the northern walls was new, replacing the old one. That had been so rotten that many travellers had bypassed it, preferring to ford the stream farther up than put their faith in the decaying wood. Once over the stream, the road curved under the northern side of the castle, beneath the soaring new curtain wall.

Baldwin stood at the side of the road and let other travellers pass by while he ran his eyes over the place. It had a curious design, but that was only because it was so strongly placed. Baldwin was sure that he had seen a place built to a similar design before: long and narrow, sited upon the long spur of a hill. He smiled when he pinpointed his memory: it was like Richard Coeur de Lion’s Château Gaillard, albeit on a smaller scale. Both lay on top of ridges, taking advantage of the line of the land.

At the south-west point of Oakhampton was a keep set atop a solid mound. This had been a part of the spur, but beyond the keep the land had been dug away and used to raise the keep’s mound still higher, creating a deep and unbridgeable crevasse and making attack along the line of the spur itself all but impossible.

In front of the keep was an almost triangular bailey, holding the hall, kitchens and chapel and main accommodation for Sir Hugh’s men. A square barbican faced the bridge, and it was connected to the main gatehouse some 100 feet behind it by a high-walled corridor which extended like a long finger of moorstone pointing at the bridge. Any attacker who succeeded in breaking down the door to the barbican would run the gauntlet of concentrated fire from above all the way along that length before he could attempt to storm the gatehouse – a suicidal mission if ever there was one, Baldwin acknowledged.

Above the roadway the ground rose steeply to the curtain walls bounding the castle itself, and when Baldwin continued with the flow of people to the southern side of the place, he saw that the walls here were set as high above the meadow. The castle loomed above the people meandering from tents to stalls as they surveyed the goods on display.

Usually Oakhampton was a tranquil castle. Far enough from the town, which was itself remote at the best of times, the castle saw only occasional travellers passing along the road. From the dung that lay about so liberally, this field was normally pasture for sheep, horses and cattle. With the river flowing around in a great loop, the soil must have produced good grass for the animals even in the driest summer, and this would commonly be a pleasant, out-of-the-way place where a man could sit on a stone at the water’s edge and contemplate his life while the sunlight danced over the waters. Or so Baldwin assumed, for today it was a scene of lunatic mayhem.

Men milled about and bellowed at each other. Here, at the foot of the barbican, nearer the river, there was a set of horse-lines, but the main part of the field was now a tended area with gaily coloured pavilions, flags fluttering in the breeze. Squires and heralds set out the carefully painted shields of their masters so that others could challenge them, while spectators strolled idly by, confirming who was present. The sight made Baldwin want to groan. He knew that his own tent would soon be erected, a damp and chill home for a week.

Eventually he came to a second field which was dedicated to a market. It was filled with small sheds and wagons where local folk had set up stalls. Food, ale and wine were in plentiful supply, but so were bolts of cloth, jewels and trinkets, because wherever knights met to tourney, their women would be close at hand to egg them on, and even if they weren’t, knights were among the vainest of men, forever seeking fashionable or expensive cloth to proclaim their richness. It was natural for merchants to try to sell gold, silver and silks at a tournament, just as it was natural that the usurers and money-lenders would also be on hand. They too had their place.

Beyond this was a third field, and it was here that Baldwin saw his friend.

‘Simon!’

On hearing his name called, Simon Puttock turned, wearing a scowl which only faded when he recognised Baldwin. He was standing by a lance-rack at the side of a ber frois, talking to a sandy-haired man with a sallow, pinched face. At the lance-rack itself leaned a short, squat, truculent Celt with near-black hair and blue eyes, who wore a leather apron. From the adze thrust into the apron string, Baldwin assumed he was a carpenter.

‘Baldwin – thank God! I thought it was more problems! How are you, old friend? I was beginning to wonder whether you’d plead fatherhood to avoid the event. How are they?’

Baldwin noticed that the other two men appeared irritable, but he saw no sign that Simon wanted to return to his discussion with them. ‘Jeanne is fine, but very tired,’ he replied. ‘Our daughter Richalda is keeping her and Petronilla awake through the night.’

‘Not you?’

‘Yes, she keeps me up as well,’ Baldwin admitted. There was no surprise to it. His manor house was a good size, but the solar block was not vast and Baldwin was learning that one baby girl could make more noise than any animal of the same size when desiring attention.

‘Is Jeanne coping?’

‘She fluctuates between weeping from sheer frustration and tiredness, and laughing with delight when she sees what she calls a smile on the baby’s face.’

‘You don’t see it?’ Simon asked.

‘There is nothing to see,’ Baldwin said severely. ‘The child is a mass of bawling noise, nothing more.’

Simon made no comment, there was no need. Baldwin’s words might have been harsh but his tone, when he spoke of his daughter, was gentle and proud.

‘And how are Margaret and Peterkin?’

‘They are fine. Meg’s perfectly used to podding. I left her to it,’ Simon said absently, then he appeared to recall the man at his side. ‘Oh, Sir Baldwin, this is Hal Sachevyll, who is designing the ber frois and setting out the space for fighting.’

Baldwin gazed at him blankly. ‘The ber frois aren’t ready?’

‘No,’ Sachevyll snapped. ‘It’s ridiculous. We’ve got the main frames up in place, but we need fresh timber for the flooring. The stuff we’ve been given is useless. Soggy, rotten and feeble.’

‘The wood’s shite,’ the carpenter asserted. ‘I wouldn’t stand on those planks. They’re rotten.’

‘It’s an outrage, Bailiff,’ Hal Sachevyll declared passionately. ‘All the timbers are of poor quality and there’s scarcely enough, in any case. I demand that the town provides more.’

‘We’ve been through this already, Hal,’ Simon said shortly. ‘If you want more timber, you’ll have to pay for it.’

‘I have paid! The stuff delivered is just not good enough, is it, Wymond?’ He appealed to the carpenter, who spat at Simon’s feet.

Simon looked at him coldly. ‘Then buy more. You have been given a good sum of money to make the tournament work, haven’t you? Use it.’

‘What, waste more of Lord Hugh’s money? It may be loaned by a money-lender, but Lord Hugh will have to pay it all back sooner or la–’

‘You have enough to build,’ Simon said impatiently. ‘You suggested a budget, I daresay. Stick to it.’

Hal sighed. ‘Look, Lord Hugh told me how much he wanted to pay. He agreed a budget with my banker, and Lord Hugh will settle up later. But that doesn’t mean I can go willy-nilly ordering fresh wood and–’

‘I repeat: you have enough funds. Use them!’

‘Our banker is dead, Bailiff. Murdered some weeks ago. I would pawn my own few belongings, but since you have plenty of wood here, why not give me some? It’s all Lord Hugh’s. And it’s his own villeins who shortchanged me, supplying rotten timbers when I ordered the best. You should command them to give us more for their lord’s honour.’

‘For the last time, I’m not going to steal from the townsfolk,’ Simon said sharply. ‘Why don’t you make the stands smaller, or have lower rails at the front? I can’t believe you really need so much wood.’

‘You’ve never built stands, have you, Bailiff?’ Wymond the carpenter interrupted. ‘Maybe you’d like to take my fucking hammer and show me how to do it?’

Simon’s patience was frayed. Unused to such rudeness, he was close to losing his own temper. His features hardened, but after a moment’s effort he composed himself. ‘Well, perhaps you can show me what I fail to comprehend, Wymond.’

‘Yes, I too should like to see these bers frois,’ Baldwin said.

With Wymond following, swearing, Sachevyll led them to the high walls of the stands enclosing the lists.

Baldwin left Simon and the other two as they argued, the carpenter pointing to weaknesses and the dearth of wood while Simon shook his head and declared himself satisfied with the preparations. Instead Baldwin went to look at the layout. He was grateful that a small team of workmen were sawing and hammering because their row smothered the noise of the bickering between Simon and Sachevyll.

The area was large. There would be space for at least fifty knights to contest within its fencing, first with horses, then on foot. Baldwin had seen many tournaments, and this seemed to have been set out with skill. The space between the ber frois was adequate, there was plentiful land for the horses to build up their speed, and the stands were a good size for all the men and women who would want to come and watch the spectacle.

It would be interesting to see a tournament again, he thought. He had practised regularly while a Knight Templar and had fought in the lists, both in individual clashes with lance on shields, and in the mêlée where everyone wielded their favourite weapon after the initial brutal, thundering collision, but now he was approaching fifty years of age he was happy that younger bones and muscles should have their turn.

He heard the voices behind him as the others approached. Hal was talking. ‘And just look at this! I’ve never seen such shoddy lumber! My heavens, I shudder to think what Lord Hugh will think when he sees it. It’s an embarrassment, that’s what it is.’

‘If it’s the best–’

‘Don’t fucking tell me it’s the best they can do,’ Wymond rasped. When Baldwin turned to glance at them, he saw that the carpenter was right before Simon and pointing with a furious finger.

The Bailiff’s voice was curt but controlled. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you could get on with the ber frois.’

‘I don’t want to be associated with–’

‘You already are, Master Carpenter, so I suggest you get on with it.’

‘Not without better wood.’

‘Christ Jesus, give me strength!’ Simon cried heavenwards. ‘Wymond, get back to your work, and if you need more, petition your friend Hal here.’

‘You’ll have a disaster. It’s happened before, a long time ago, at Exeter,’ Sachevyll said, panicking. ‘You’ll have a collapse and then where will we all be?’

‘In the shit,’ Wymond spat.

‘What happened at Exeter?’ Baldwin asked.

‘A knight was killed and the crowd was angry. He was a well-liked fellow and the mob wanted the blood of his killer. They all moved forward, and the barrier gave way before the press, letting people tumble out. Women were smothered beneath the bodies, Sir Baldwin. Women and children, all crushed. It’ll happen here if the Bailiff remains obdurate. I warn you now: if you don’t get me new wood, I won’t be responsible.’

‘Lord Hugh advanced you sufficient funds to buy decent wood. If you skimped in order to line your own pockets, you’ll have to buy more. No matter what, the safety aspect is entirely your responsibility!’

‘If anything goes wrong, I’ll blame you,’ the carpenter stated. ‘It’s not my fault if the thing’s unsafe.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Simon insisted. ‘It’s the responsibility of you both to make the stands safe.’

‘I don’t see what I’m supposed to do with this crap. If there was some decent timber it’d be different, but–’

Simon cut through the carpenter’s grumbling monotone. ‘God’s teeth! Just get back to your work, you lazy, whining whoreson, or I’ll have the Lord Hugh’s Bailiff arrest you as soon as he arrives.’

‘You can’t do that without a reason,’ the carpenter sneered and was about to add something to his words when Simon took a short step forward. Immediately Wymond drew his hammer and hefted it menacingly. ‘You want to attack me, eh? You want some of this?’

‘Put that thing down, you misbegotten shit of a Plymouth alewife!’ Simon roared.

‘Make me!’

Baldwin stepped between the two. ‘Simon, there is no point in fighting. He’s beneath you.’

‘Oh, yes?’ the carpenter screeched, enraged. ‘I’ll have his fucking head off, and we’ll see who’s beneath who, then, eh?’

Baldwin said nothing, but his hand went to his sword.

Hal put a hand on the carpenter’s arm. ‘Come on, dear,’ he soothed. ‘He’s not worth it.’

‘Try anything and you will be arrested,’ Baldwin said flatly.

‘Come now, Bailiff – squabbling with the hired help?’

Hearing the amused, laconic tone, Simon tensed. While they had been arguing, the King Herald, Mark Tyler, had lounged over. He stood watching their argument with ill-concealed distaste, like a nobleman who was above any such grubby disputes. Two heralds stood with him, both looking on with frank interest. Baldwin recognised one as Odo, the messenger who had given him his invitation. Odo was wincing as though pained by the King Herald’s tone.

Simon privately considered Lord Hugh’s King Herald to be a fat, obnoxious fool. Tyler had an easy time of it; he took over when all the hard work was done. And what then? Maybe he’d adjudicate occasionally, sing a few songs, praise some knights for their courage, and then retire to a tavern or Lord Hugh’s bar with some cronies while other men did all the serious work.

The dark-haired man, with the double chin and expanding paunch beneath his multi-coloured tabard covered with Lord Hugh’s insignia, wore an expression of resignation, as if he had expected no better of Simon than that he should quarrel publicly with a carpenter. It made Simon realise what a spectacle he was making of himself and the thought that he had done so before the King Herald made him recover his poise instantly.

‘Touch me, and you’ll be arrested or dead in a moment,’ he said to the carpenter. ‘Get back to your work or I shall demand the King Herald arrests you in Lord Hugh’s name.’

Seeing a mutinous light in the carpenter’s eyes, Baldwin pulled an inch or two of his sword blade from the scabbard, but Wymond had stood his ground long enough. He hawked and spat and lumbered away.

Sachevyll threw his hands in the air.

‘This is wonderful! Quite astonishing! You realise you’re going to ruin the whole show? Now you’ve upset my friend, what’s next? I ask you, can we possibly get things completed if you molest my people? What Lord Hugh will have to say when he sees all this mess, I shudder to think. You need to find more wood, Bailiff, because otherwise I refuse to accept any responsibility. I’ll tell Lord Hugh whose fault it was when he comes storming over the place. And I’ll tell him I warned you the stands are dangerous, that they might collapse. The ber frois could be filled with his friends and their women – you want to see Lord Hugh’s friends falling and breaking their legs and arms, even dying?’

‘Master Sachevyll,’ Simon said with an icy calmness, ‘you are quite right to be concerned. You are Lord Hugh’s servant, while I, a humble bailiff, am a servant of Abbot Champeaux. I have nothing to answer to Lord Hugh about. I owe him no homage, I seek no patronage.’

‘You are as much Lord Hugh’s man as I am, myself. We both take his money to make this tournament work.’

‘No, I do not take his money. I am no mercenary. I repeat, I am Bailiff to Abbot Champeaux, an officer. I take nothing from Lord Hugh. If you have concerns, raise them with your lord. For my part, I have other business to attend to.’

‘You can’t leave me here! You have to help me find more wood!’

‘Get your own damned wood, you feeble-minded sodomite! I’ve been trying to help you all this long day, but now I’ve had enough. You were given the money to buy whatever you needed, but you’ve bought rubbish. Either buy more or make do. Either way, leave me in peace. I have a tournament to organise.’

‘Where can I go?’ Sachevyll wailed.

‘To hell and back – I don’t give a shit, so long as it’s far from me,’ Simon ground out unsympathetically and turned on his heel.