The Iron Tempest (30 page)

CHAPTER NINE

In which Bradamant, Marfisa and Rashid meet on the battlefield and learn a surprising Truth

Rashid did not know what to make of the message that the strange woman had left, and even more puzzled to find himself again in possession of Frontino. He was absolutely mystified. Who could possibly want to challenge him? Who had any reason to accuse him of breaking his faith? Who would simultaneously insult him and do him a kindness? He had tried to interrogate the beautiful maiden who had been the agent for his unknown benefactor, but she had managed to vanish as quickly and mysteriously as she had appeared. Was she some supernatural creature? Or the agent of a practical joker? He racked his brains as he strolled back into his tent (his injuries betrayed only by a residual limp), but could not think of a soul in all the world with whom he had such a mortal quarrel.

“What are you scowling about?” asked the dark woman, who was slouched across a pile of cushions like two and one tenth yards of heavy rope.

“I’ve just gotten Frontino back.”

“That’s wonderful! And what, pray tell, is a Frontino?”

“My horse. I lost him, oh, a year or so ago and now, out of the blue, he shows up again!”

“So?”

“Well, that’s the mystery. The person who returned it was acting for a knight who has challenged me to a joust.”

“What?” said the woman, successfully hissing a word that had no sibilants, as she uncoiled from her pillows like a melanistic cobra. “And who’d be this rash suicide?”

“I have no idea. If you’d asked me, I’d have told you that I didn’t think I had an enemy in the world.”

“Everyone’s got enemies.”

“You’re as cynical as you are bloodthirsty!”

“I’m also practical and alive.”

“There’s not a Moor who could hurt me and the only Christian knight who exceeds my prowess, if there is one, is Roland—and he’d certainly not confront me in such a cowardly fashion. It’s either a madman or a joke—what’s there to fear from either?”

The woman put her long-fingered hands on either side of his face and leaned close to him; her hawkish features filled his eyes; her breath smelled like cinnamon.

“For my part,” she said at last, “I think I’d rather face insanity than humor.”

“But which is it?”

“How would I know?” she replied in her husky, sibilant voice. “So for that reason alone, be careful, my love.”

He was still pondering the mystery when he was summoned to Agramant’s tent. When he arrived, he was not particularly surprised to see the Emir Marsilius there as well, nor by the presence of two or three of his brother knights. Though the Spaniard had proved an invaluable and loyal ally, Rashid personally felt nothing but contempt for a man who would so easily abandon both his faith and his country.

“You seem fully recovered from your illness,” said Agramant.

“Yes, your highness,” replied Rashid. “Thanks to Marfisa, I can get around quite well now. Indeed, I see no reason why I can’t return to your service.”

“In due time, my boy, in due time. Meanwhile, there’s the question of this challenge.”

“Challenge?”

“Yes. Some fool knight is making a positive nuisance of himself, riding up and down outside the city walls, blowing an infernal trumpet and shouting for you to ride out and fight him.”

“Oh that. I have no idea who it may be, your highness. I myself received word of this challenge only a few minutes ago.”

“Well, someone apparently thinks you’ve wronged them.”

“Maybe so, but I’m not responsible for every lunatic’s fantasy.”

“Of course not.”

“The only thing to do, it seems to me, your highness, would be for me to ride out and either see what this is all about or silence the fellow.”

“Well, I’d certainly appreciate that. My mind’s occupied enough without silly distractions like this.”

Rashid could only look chastened at this mild rebuke.

“Your highness,” said one of the knights, a young man whom Rashid had not previously met, though he knew he bore the rather peculiar name of Serpentine de la Stella, “there’s no point to Sir Rashid bothering himself with every halfwit who happens to own a sword and a big mouth. There’s no honorable challenge here, only a nuisance, like a mad dog. I’ll gladly go out and settle this once and for all.”

“But your highness—” began Rashid, but Agramant’s raised hand silenced him.

“Serpentine, you may do as you suggest.”

“Thank you, your highness,” he said and marched from the tent.

“Oh, your highness!” protested Rashid. “This is infamous! I can certainly fight my own battles!”

“Serpentine was right, Rashid: it’s only a nuisance. And, besides, I want you in perfect health for the new campaign that Emir Marsilius and I have been scheming. Charlemagne has not yet heard my last word! That will be all.”

Rashid was dismissed.

“Yes, your highness,” was all he could say, but the king was no longer listening.

The news about the idiot or madman who had been orbiting the city tootling away on his trumpet and making the most insulting accusations against Agramant’s favorite knight was soon the talk of all the city. The result was that when Serpentine finally rode out to meet the challenger, the city walls were crowded with spectators. Only the newborn and the dimwitted failed to make an appearance. Even Agramant and Marsilius could not forego climbing to one of the towers to witness the diverting spectacle. The young knight trotted through the gate resplendent in a surcoat embroidered with gold, silver and precious gems. A great cheer was raised at his appearance and he swung his plumed helmet in a flamboyant salute before donning it. He had only just done so, and turned to face the mysterious challenger, when he saw that person bearing down upon him at full tilt, a steel avalanche with a golden lance aimed straight for his heart. He dropped his own weapon and spurred his horse but it was too late. The other’s point caught him squarely in the chest, sending him pinwheeling to the earth twenty yards away. His mount leaped away in a single vast bound like a grasshopper. Raising himself unsteadily onto an elbow, bracing for the fatal
coup de grâce
, Serpentine was amazed to see his expected executioner pursue the panicked horse, grasp its dangling reins and lead the animal back to him. He stumbled painfully to his feet as the reins were handed back to him. “Get back on your horse,” the mysterious stranger said, “and tell your master to send me a better champion.”

On the tower, Agramant turned to Marsilius, who was laughing perhaps a little bit too heartily. “Did you see that?” he asked the Cordovan king. “What a madman! He had every right to claim Serpentine’s horse as a prize, or to at least take the boy prisoner! Well, we shall give him the better champion he craves so much.”

The Saracen knights who had joined the two kings in the tower now all clamored for the honor of punishing the upstart. Marsilius suggested Grandonio of Volterna, pointedly suggesting that perhaps a Spaniard might have better luck than a Moor.

Grandonio was a dark, powerfully-built, hairy man, perpetually angry, and he rode out shouting threats to the other knight. “You’ll soon regret your courtesy,” he cried. “After I knock you from your saddle I’ll take you as prisoner to meet my king—except that I might kill you first. I am notoriously careless about such things.”

“You can be as boorish as you like, but you’ll not goad me into lowering my standard of courtesy to meet yours,” Bradamant replied (for of course the mysterious challenger was she). “Therefore I’m compelled to warn you to turn back now before I have to hurt you. Go back and tell your lord that I haven’t come here to fiddle around with blustering fat trifles like you.”

Grandonio, inarticulate at best, was speechless with fury and, completely unable to speak, he did the only other thing he knew how: he lowered his lance and charged. Bradamant did the same. The Cordovan knight was vaguely aware of a tremendous crash accompanied by a flash of light, like a thunderbolt; when his head cleared he was lying on his back at the end of a furrow ten yards long.

Once again, Bradamant fetched her opponent’s horse and returned it.

“Didn’t I warn you,” she said sternly, “that you’d be better off carrying my message? Now, please go back and tell Agramant to choose from among his greatest paladins the one who is truly worthy of jousting with me. The practice has been pleasant and I thank you for it, but I’m tired of wasting my time and energy on inexperienced amateurs.”

“Who in the world
is
that?” Agramant wondered aloud.

“I have no idea,” replied Marsilius. “But I’m beginning to suspect it’s no madman.”

The knights surrounding the kings peered down from the parapet, but, since Bradamant’s trademark white armor was covered by the surcoat bearing Fiordispina’s cypress motif, which no one recognized, it was impossible to identify her. They began to speculate wildly, mentioning names which caused even some of the most puissant of the knights to shudder. The majority opinion was that it must be Roland, though a few held out for either Renaud or Brandimart. Those who argued for Roland pointed in favor of their argument to the rumor that he had recently gone mad.

“Allow me to go next,” begged Ferrau, one of Marsilius’ nephews. “Not because I expect to do any better, but if I fall it’ll make the others’ defeat seem a little less hard.”

Agramant agreed, if now a little reluctantly, and Ferrau descended to the armory, where he carefully picked among the weapons until he found the newest and finest that was available. He chose his steed with the same care, choosing the one among the several hundred splendid animals that seemed the swiftest and surest-footed.

Unlike the others, he respectfully saluted Bradamant when he appeared on the field and she politely returned the gesture. He rode close enough for the two to be able to speak without shouting.

“Who are you?” Bradamant asked and Ferrau identified himself. “Well,” she said, “I’ll not do you dishonor by refusing you, but I’ll tell you that I wish you’d been someone else.”

“Who?”

“Rashid,” she replied, hearing her voice break as she said the word and glad that her helmet hid her face, which she felt growing hot. “
Rashid!
” she repeated in a rush, hoping that Ferrau had not detected the wrong emotion in her voice. “I’ve . . . I’ve heard of his prowess at arms and I’ve come to discover if he’s equal to his reputation. All I want is to see for myself if he’s as good a jouster as rumor claims.” She found herself growing hot again as some evil portion of her brain sniggered at the feeble
double entendre
.

Bradamant saw Ferrau gazing at her intently, as though his eyes might bore through her armor like a pair of augurs. She saw him start, his eyes growing wide, then narrow knowingly and she wondered,
Has he discovered my ruse? Can he suspect who I am?
She was glad that her helmet covered all of her face except her eyes and mouth, but was that enough? Had she made a mistake allowing the young knight to approach so closely?

Ferrau was close enough to see that the dark eyes that stared so intently back at him were very beautiful indeed, that the stern-looking mouth was deliciously coral-colored and that the voice it uttered had a sweetness that seemed to belie his original suspicion that the mysterious knight was a mere boy. This was, he suddenly realized, no ordinary knight, and he felt as though he had already been vanquished.
Even if she never touches me with her lance,
he thought,
I’ve already been conquered by those eyes.

“Are you ready?” she asked. “Or are you going to sit there mooning all day? I’m anxious to meet the one I came here for in the first place.”

“Let’s first see who has the better command of his arms,” replied Ferrau. “If you succeed in unseating me, then the one you’re craving so keenly will come to avenge me.”

This promise satisfied Bradamant. The two knights parted, rode for a distance, turned and charged. To no one’s real surprise Bradamant’s lance knocked Ferrau from his saddle and as she returned a knight’s horse for the third time that afternoon she demanded: “Get up and do what you promised.”

A shamefaced Ferrau went to Rashid and told him that the stranger demanded a joust with him and would continue unseating knights until he appeared.

“Don’t you have any idea who it may be?”

“No,” said Ferrau, too humiliated to admit that he had confronted a woman and lost. Besides, the memory of those incredible eyes still lingered before him, like the blinding afterimage of the sun.

Rashid turned to his liege and begged for permission to engage the stranger. Agramant, now too aware of the embarrassment that this interloper was causing him, decided that the novelty of the situation had long since passed and gave Rashid the permission he begged.

The fact that three competent knights had already been handily toppled by the stranger did not bother Rashid overmuch. He was realistically aware of his prowess and did not doubt for a moment that he would prove victorious. He descended from the tower, calling for his armor and lance. He had started for the stables when he suddenly recalled that Frontino had been restored to him and of all things by the stranger who at this very moment was craving his death. How had the mad knight gotten hold of the horse and why would he then provide Rashid with such a formidable weapon by returning the animal? He pondered this for a moment but, since it seemed irresolvable, decided to ignore the problem. That he had Frontino back was the important thing.

As he armed himself, his fellow knights crowded around, ostensibly to help, but mainly to continue their debate about the identity of the stranger and offer advice that Rashid ignored. Ferrau was interrogated closely, since his reluctance to talk about his conversation with the stranger elicited not a little suspicion.

“All right,” he said, giving in to the pressure. “If you must know, I didn’t recognize the knight—at least I’m certain that it’s not anyone you’ve been naming.”

“Well, who do you
think
it is then?” another knight pressed.

“I couldn’t see the face clearly, but at first it looked like Renaud’s younger brother. After realizing how powerful and skillful this knight is, I realized that Reinhold could never have been up to it. He’s good, but not that good. That really leaves only one possibility: Reinhold’s twin sister, Bradamant.”