The Iron Tempest (44 page)
Authors: Ron Miller
“You don’t have to,” the prince replied. “Not yet, anyway. Everything’ll be explained to you soon enough. Right now, we must hurry. Murder’s been done, and worse. I’m risking exile at best.”
“But why?”
“I told you: later.”
Rashid and his rescuers, who moved quickly in spite of their burden—either through skill and strength or inspired by the same terror that seemed to grip the young prince—hurried along a sloping tunnel that finally emerged in the open night air. A few yards away a covered cart waited, into which Rashid was quickly bundled. The moment he was hidden the cart began to rumble off along the cobblestone street. Rashid, his wits slowly returning, wondered if this were nothing more than an elaborately cruel hoax, a subtle torture invented by the furiously mad Theodora. Though still weak, he felt his strength returning—inspired perhaps by the proximity of one of his mortal enemies—and even a weakened Rashid should be more than a match for the few men he had seen so far.
After only a few minutes, the cart halted and he once again heard Leon’s voice: “Hurry! Come on out of there! In this door! Quickly!”
Rashid got a brief glimpse of a moonlit alley, flanked by high, stone walls and a dark doorway a few feet from where he stood. With an effort, he quelled the impulse to break Leon’s neck then and there. Perhaps he was being led to either Theodora—whom he would take no less pleasure in demolishing—or perhaps even the emperor himself. In either case, it would be worth waiting to see what would transpire. He seemed safe enough for the present—if his enemies wished him dead, he’d have been so by now. There was some other plot afoot that had obviously not yet been played out.
A long flight of narrow stairs led to a broad landing or mezzanine, at one end of which was a tall, ornate door. Leon fumbled with a heavy key and swung it open as Rashid was pushed stumbling through the opening.
He found himself in a broad, dark room, illuminated only by the dim moonlight that drifted through the numerous windows. It was elegantly furnished and decorated. Tapestries hung from three of the high walls and ornately carved furniture was scattered over the carpet-strewn floor.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“My apartments,” replied Leon, locking the door behind them.
“Why?”
“In a moment,” the prince replied, opening the doors of a huge armoire. “Here,” he said, handing Rashid a silk robe, “put this on. Sit down, please. Make yourself comfortable. Food and drink is on the way. Forgive me for not having any light, though, it might not be safe.”
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?”
“You understand that I’m Constantine’s son, Leon?”
“Of course.”
“He hates you for what you did to his army, the one you slaughtered and routed at Belgrade.”
“I would imagine.”
“If he knew I’ve rescued you, he’d banish me. I’d incur his eternal hatred.”
“I don’t know yet that I’ve
been
rescued. I do believe you’re Prince Leon. For that reason alone, why should I trust you?”
Rashid was astonished and embarrassed to see the prince throw himself to his knees. The prince took his hands into his own as he looked up into Rashid’s face. The knight was even more astonished to see that tears were pouring down Leon’s face.
“Sir Knight,” Leon said passionately, “your valor inseparably binds me to you in willing servitude, valor that seems to me unique, even superhuman. It demands that your well-being is more important to my happiness than my own. For the sake of your safety I don’t care what happens to me. I put your friendship—if you’ll have me for your friend—ahead of my father’s love, ahead of my family’s, ahead of my people’s.”
“Is this true?”
“I swear it in the name of Jesus Christ, my lord and savior.”
Rashid did not quite know what to say. His greatest enemy had just saved his life; he was overwhelmed. He lifted the prince to his feet and embraced him.
“My lord,” he said, “A thousand thanks. The life you’ve given back to me is yours whenever you ask for it.”
Leon insisted that Rashid remain hidden for three or four days. The murdered guard was probably already discovered, to say nothing of the missing prisoner, and the city would soon be alarmed. The assumption would be that he had fled the country. If he waited, his horse and armor would be returned and he could ride out one night with relative impunity.
“I won’t be able to spend much time with you,” Leon said. “That wouldn’t be prudent. I must react as everyone else will at the news of your escape. No one knows you’re here but my own men, and I trust them implicitly. You needn’t fear betrayal. As much food and drink will be brought to you as you desire. There’ll always be a man outside that door to do your bidding. He’s a servant, however, not a guard. You’re free to leave any time—I can only urge you to trust me and wait until it’s safe.”
Left alone with his thoughts, Rashid scarcely knew what to make of them. And as the days passed, he grew ever more irresolute. Leon’s servant brought him news: the city was in an uproar over the escape of the prisoner—though not so much over the murder of the dwarf, who was considered something of a pest in any event—but most particularly Theodora and Constantine, both of whom had spent many long hours devising ever more terrible fates for their captive and whose disappointment knew no bounds. The reward they offered for his return was so princely as to make it unsafe for him to show his face for a hundred miles around. Leon was right: the only thing to do was to remain hidden until enough of the furor had abated that he could slip away one night.
In the meantime, all Rashid could do was pace the apartment and meditate, which he did furiously, clasping his poor head—inexperienced as it was with such complex thoughts—with both his hands, as though keeping a bomb from exploding.
There was nothing now more important to him than redeeming the debt of honor he owed Prince Leon Augustus, freeing himself from that enormous obligation that bound him more firmly than any iron shackles could have. It seemed to him, he concluded, that if he spent all the remainder of his life—however long that may be—in the service of the prince, if he exposed himself to a thousand deaths, he still would not have done so much that he could not yet do more.
It was not until the fifth day that Leon finally returned.
“There is news, my knight!” he said.
“I can leave now?”
“Well, perhaps—certainly, if you wish. I’ll do nothing to keep you here. But. . .”
“Yes, my lord?”
“I thought perhaps I might persuade you to do a, um, small favor for me.”
Rashid studied the prince. Obviously something had occurred to disturb him greatly, even more so than the rescue of his hero. The young man’s face was flushed with excitement, his eyes as bright as a hashish smoker’s. He paced the carpet nervously, clasping and unclasping his hands. He began to speak half a dozen times, stumbling over the words. Finally, he stopped, faced Rashid, drew himself up with a visible effort and swallowed audibly.
“Sir Knight, have you ever been in love?”
“Pardon, my lord?”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Yes, my lord, indeed I have,” Rashid said, but thought,
What is this? What is this? Leon is a Greek, of course, but surely . . .
“Good! Then you’ll understand perfectly. News has come from Charlemagne, the emperor of Frankland—a proclamation, in fact—that the most desirable, the most beautiful maiden in all the world is willing to marry that one man who is able to meet her test with sword and lance.
“Sir Knight!” he cried, suddenly grasping Rashid by his arms, his face crumpled in anguish, “I
must
have this maiden’s hand in marriage! I’ve thought of nothing else for years! Yet, until now, I always believed her to be beyond my grasp. Indeed, to tell you the truth, I’ve had every reason to believe that she—this is so painful to admit!—loathed the very idea of marrying me.”
“What makes you think she’s changed her mind?”
“I don’t think she’s changed her mind at all. What she’s done, however, is given me an opportunity to prove that I’m worthy of her, to win her hand by the only means she truly respects.”
“This is some sort of contest? You’ll have to fight for her?”
“Not exactly
for
her. I’ll have to fight
her
.”
“Fight the maiden?”
“Yes.”
“What is this maiden’s name, if I may ask?” Rashid said with a black foreboding.
“Lady Bradamant of Clairmont.”
“Good God!”
“You’ve obviously heard of her. I can tell from the expression on your face.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of her.”
“Then you know there’s not another woman like her in all the world.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. What’s this about fighting her? What’re you talking about?”
“Well,” said Leon glumly, the cheer slipping from his face like wet paint, “that’s the rub. You see, I was betrothed to her—promised her hand in marriage by her father, Duke Haemon. She resisted this for some reason—I think she was in love with someone else. If that was true, than I can’t blame her, not truly; even I, who dream about her day and night, hearing her name in every breeze, seeing her face in every cloud—”
“Yes yes yes. But about this contest?”
“Well, Lady Bradamant has compromised. She’s circumvented her father’s wishes by going directly to the emperor and having him declare that no one’ll be allowed to marry her who doesn’t first best her in battle.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. The only way anyone could best her in battle would be by killing her.”
“No, no. All the contender has to do is survive from sunup to sundown. If he’s still standing then, he wins her hand.”
“And you intend to try this?” Rashid’s heart rose; it was abundantly clear that the prince wouldn’t survive half a minute against even an unarmed Bradamant.
The prince did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned and measured the length of the room with his long strides, his hands clenched tightly behind his back. When he reached the far wall, he paused, as though surprised it was there, then faced Rashid.
“In a manner of speaking, Sir Knight. Only in a manner of speaking. I’m only too aware of my own lack of prowess at arms. I’m a wonderful strategist, I could be a great general. My plan last week would’ve worked faultlessly had you not interfered. But in the use of arms. . . no, I’m afraid that I’d not be match for even the most inept of my own men.
“But, you see, that’s the whole point: what I lack in strength and skill I make up for in wit and intelligence. And here’s the proof! What if I’m represented by a proxy wearing my armor, carrying my weapons, wearing my insignia? A powerful warrior, one of such strength and courage and valor that he could stand against any Frank—if such a man were to challenge Lady Bradamant wouldn’t it be certain that she’d be overcome and her heart captured?”
“This hardly sounds honorable, my lord.”
“All’s fair in love and war. Besides, doesn’t it sound romantic? Like something out of the old myths and sagas?”
“I don’t see how it could be done,” lied Rashid. He knew exactly what terrible words were going to come next from Prince Leon.
“There’ll be nothing to it. You’ll stay hidden from the day we arrive. On the morning of the battle, I’ll enter my tent. You’ll don my armor while I hide myself. After you win, you’ll return to the tent where we’ll again exchange places. If you keep the helmet on the whole time, no one’ll be the wiser.
“I’ve already procured my father’s permission and as we speak men and horses are being prepared for the journey. Don’t you see how well this’ll work out for you? It’s a perfect escape from the country. Who’d suspect that you were hidden within the prince’s own entourage? See? I’ve thought of everything.”
Rashid didn’t know what to say. Or, worse, he knew what he must say and with that certain knowledge he felt his heart shattering like an ill-cleaved diamond. But he could not honorably deny Leon his request for he had already sworn to himself to obey him, even if it cost him his life a thousand times over.
“I will do it, my lord.”
“Wonderful! We leave at first light tomorrow morning!”
All during that long afternoon and night, Rashid wondered if he would even survive to fulfil his promise. He could not believe that his destroyed heart was still beating and constantly pressed a hand to his breast, astonished to feel the rythmic pulse still throbbing beneath.
He will die one way or the other, he knew, because if he keeps his word and loses Bradamant then he will have lost his life as well. And if he doesn’t die of sheer sorrow and remorse, then he will die by his own hand—an act that would be far easier than to see her and know that she is not his. So, while determined to die, he did not yet know how that death would come.
All that long afternoon and night he pondered the question. He considered the possibility of feigning weakness or lack of skill and allowing Bradamant to kill him. There could be, after all, no more pleasant death than that wrought by her own hand. But then he realized that should he do so he would not be fulfilling his sworn promise to Leon, which was to make Lady Bradamant his wife. He had given his word to take the field in single combat with her, not to make a false show of it and thereby deny the prince his expected prize. At the end and after all, he had no choice but to stand firm by his word, whatever doubts continued to assail him; he shrugged them all off. He would yield to none, he decided, except that which exort him to keep his word to Prince Leon—and not to lose faith.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In which Bradamant and Rashid face one another
on the Field of Death
Once it became common knowledge that Rashid had not only disappeared but apparently showed no indication of ever returning, Duke Haemon decided there was little purpose in remaining at Rochefort. Without the influence of the Moor’s presence, he felt confident that Bradamant would soon yield to his wishes. Besides, Beatrice had gotten her first taste of life at the imperial court and was loathe to remain any longer away from its glamour.
Bradamant did not protest the move. Until the day of the fateful tournament arrived, she did not particularly care where she was—Rochefort or Marseilles, it was all the same to her. Beatrice was surprised, but pleased, at how readily her usually recalcitrant daughter acquiesced and, though she did not understand the change, she took full advantage of it. Still rankling from the embarrassment of Renaud’s opposition to his sister’s betrothal and from Bradamant’s shockingly disloyal treaty with the emperor, to say nothing of the family’s hasty retreat from the city, Beatrice sought to repair what damage she could. Thinking that she could take advantage of her daughter’s sudden tractability, she ordered a wardrobe of the latest fashions done up in the most expensive fabrics, replacing the simple, drab costumes Bradamant prefered when not wearing her armor.
Bradamant returned to Charlemagne’s court, but with her lover missing it seemed stripped of its glamour; it seemed tawdry and noisy and crude. She felt like a gardener who had left her flowers in April or May, returning in the Fall when the sun’s rays slanted from the south and the days were short. Where there were once gay blooms in every color, and humming bees and wonderful scents, the soil was now dry and barren.
She didn’t dare to enquire openly about Rashid or where he may have gone—her mother and father were already suspicious enough. But she kept herself alert for even so much as breath carrying his name. She subtly guided the course of every conversation so that she might learn something of Rashid while maintaining an apparent disinterest. But all that she learned was what she already knew: that he was gone.
Why did he run away?
she asked herself every night as she poured tears into an increasingly spongy pillow. Bradamant’s greatest, most intolerable fear was that Rashid had run away to forget her. Seeing her father and mother set against him, he must have lost all hope of ever becoming her husband.
Perhaps
, she told herself with that cruelty people reserve solely for their own torment,
Rashid has some scheme in mind to remove my memory from his heart even more surely than by the action of mere time and distance—perhaps he is at this very moment seeking another woman, someone who will be able to drive from him his love for me as one nail will drive out another.
Then she would tear at her ill-abused pillow with her teeth, ashamed and mortified at having such terrible doubts about her lover, condemning herself for such a wicked suspicion.
She begged the emperor to allow her to again put on her armor, to send her back out into the field, to give her some insurmountable mission, but he refused. She was denied even the solace of bloodshed.
The lovelorn girl drifted obediently through each day’s reception or party or soirée, pleasing her mother and her mother’s vacant-faced friends who cooed over Bradamant’s wan attractiveness and an expression they interpreted as spiritual. She was polite to everyone, but conversations with her seem to go nowhere. Her interlocutor would gradually drift away, unable to recall exactly when Bradamant seemed to fade, ghost-like, before their eyes. She spoke only to Marfisa and even then only in the privacy of their own apartments or in shady recesses of the imperial gardens, in the dewy early dawn, hours before the population of the palace would even begin considering what for them passed for consciousness.
“The cause of all my misery,” Bradamant would moan through clenched teeth, “is that damned cruel god, Eros. He’s indelibly stamped Rashid’s image on my heart—and not just his image, but the sense and value of his strength and ability and virtue—so much so that I can’t believe it possible that any girl or woman who catches even so much as a glimpse of him doesn’t catch fire like dry grass, inspired by that passionate heat to use their every art and guile to steal him from me.”
“I think you do Rashid a disservice when you say that.”
“I know that’s true, but if I do it’s the fault of Love again. If Eros had engraved Rashid’s thoughts in my brain as deeply as he’s engraved his face in my heart I’m sure that I wouldn’t, couldn’t be jealous. Jealousy would not only be routed, but killed dead by my own hand.”
“You remind me, Bradamant, of a miser whose mind is so fixated upon his treasure that his very heart is buried with it. He can’t live ten feet away from his gold and even then he’s in constant, perpetual fear that it’s going to be stolen.”
“That’s so true, Marfisa. Now that I can neither see nor hear nor touch Rashid, Fear’s replaced Hope within me. And even though I know with all my heart that Fear is deceiving me I can’t help surrendering myself to his lies.
“Imagine this beautiful garden in the winter, when it’s drear and grey and lifeless. Just so the sun has departed from the garden of my soul, Marfisa, and the shadows are growing ever deeper. The days are growing short and all the beauty of the earth is disappearing; the cold winds are bringing ice and snow; the birds and flowers and leaves are already all gone.
“Oh, Rashid! My sun! Bring back the sweet spring I long for so much. Take away the ice and snow, take away the black clouds that are darkening my sunless heart. Drive away the fear and hopelessness that creep out of the darkness with fiery eyes and hungry grins.”
Marfisa did not know what to do as her friend sat with her face buried in her hands, sobbing like a steam engine, lamenting her lost love like a widowed turtledove. Bradamant, like most self-absorbed Romantics, pictured the world as existing in either one of two states: comedy or tragedy.
* * * * *
Day by day, ever since the broadcasting of Charlemagne’s proclamation, contenders for the hand of Haemon’s daughter had been arriving, and as their tents and pavilions began to crowd the city walls Bradamant’s mood became proportionally blacker—all the more so when she saw the vast array of tents erected to house Leon Augustus, Prince of Greece, and his retinue.
The emperor had received the prince altogether too warmly to suit Bradamant, and her parents, not surprisingly, found the young man entirely too charming for words. It disgusted and disturbed her to see them fawning over him like awe-struck peasants. She had, of course, to be introduced to Leon, though she avoided this as long as she could. He seemed completely unaware of her haughty, strained uncongeniality and chilly disinterest. He cheerily and sincerely complimented her on her poise and charm and grace with an enthusiasm that absolutely repelled her. For her part, she thought that Leon was tall and broad-shouldered and strong-looking-enough, but not nearly so tall and broad-shouldered and strong as Rashid. She would even have considered his face handsome had not Rashid also possessed one. It was unfair, but there you were: so long as Rashid existed all other men passed by her like a grey mist.
Taking advantage of his popularity, Leon began pressing the emperor to delay no longer the start of the competition, begging him to put the obstinate girl into the field. If she truly wished to find a husband stronger than she, then let Leon be the first to challenge her and get it over with. He had made up his mind, he announced portentously, to either have her for his wife or die. Charlemagne’s great heart swelled at this bold, romantic speech and he embraced the young man with all the affection he might have shown one of his own sons—more, if the truth be told. The emperor, wiping the tears from his eyes, promised Leon then and there that he would brook no further delay, that whatever claimants for Bradamant’s hand had still to arrive were to be disappointed. He called for the girl and her parents and announced that the first challenger—Prince Leon Augustus, in fact—would be met the very next morning, at dawn.
Bradamant staggered backwards a half step, but recovered before anyone saw her reaction. Her head spun and her vision blurred as though someone had struck her a blow with the flat of a sword; her heart rattled like a woodpecker. Where was Rashid? Why wasn’t he here? Was the whole purpose of her challenge to become futile—or, heaven forfend, worse? Well, she thought, straightening her spine and clenching her teeth until her tongue was covered with a gritty dust of abraded enamel, Rashid was the only man in the world capable of besting her at arms and until he arrived she would be more than happy to litter the field with his unhappy competitors.
That night, she sat alone in her apartment’s oriel, leaning on the sill of one of the tall slit windows, watching gloomily as a stockade was being hastily erected around the lists. She watched the flaming torches and lanterns and listened to the saws and hammer blows, thinking of how in so few hours they would be replaced by the ringing of sword against shield. She would have to murder that nice young man in the morning and, for all she knew, a dozen or maybe even a score of other men, some young, some not, some nice, most probably not. This did not particularly bother or depress her—after all, no one asked them to come here; if she had to beat them senseless, or lop off this or that limb or even a head, who could they blame other than themselves? It would after all, she considered, perhaps a little cold-bloodedly, be a more pleasant way to pass the time than lurking glumly around the palace as she had been doing for so long.
* * * * *
Rashid was spending that same night no less anxiously. Leon had insisted that he not show his face anywhere once they had come within sight of Marseilles and had made him a virtual prisoner in his tent after their arrival. Rashid was to fight Bradamant the next morning clad from head to foot in full armor. However, he could not help stealing a long gaze at the palace that towered above the city’s walls. Which of those blazing windows was hers? he wondered. He sighed and withdrew, closing the opening securely. He felt like a prisoner sure enough—a prisoner condemned to the gallows. Although Leon had argued heatedly, he could not sway his proxy from his choice of weapons: he eschewed both horse (for fear that his opponent might recognize Frontino) and lance; he would face Bradamant armed only with his sword. That sword would not be Balisard, either, against which he knew even the finest steel would part like paper. Taking one of Leon’s weapons and wanting to take no chances, he secretly blunted its edge with a stone.
On foot and armed thus, Rashid stepped out onto the dewy field at dawn. Dressed in the prince’s armor—and making certain to wear a helmet that covered most of his face—he carried a shield bearing Leon’s golden two-headed eagle on a red ground—which device also decorated his surcoat. A gold eagle adorned the crest of his helmet. A little earlier, Leon had ostentatiously entered his tent, making certain that a great number of people saw him do so. There he’d remain hidden in an armoire until Rashid had won Bradamant’s hand for him.
Rather than spending her night dulling the edge of her sword, Bradamant had honed the weapon to such a frightening sharpness that it cut cleanly through an iron bolt. She hoped it would cut as cleanly and surely through the Greek’s iron armor, penetrating to the quick beneath, again and yet again, until she had pierced his heart with as many wounds as her own had suffered.
She stood at the far end of the list, alone, her breath steaming in the cool early morning air like a racehorse’s, which she also resembled in the way she impatiently fidgeted and stamped the ground. She felt as though she was burning from the inside out, as though red-hot wires were laced through her body instead of veins and nerves.
How long’ve I been standing here?
she wondered
. It seems like an hour. Everyone was so anxious to get this over with—well, I’m here and I’m ready. Let’s get it over with.
The location for the contest was a vast. level extent of velvet sward that lay between the city walls and the ancient forest. The arena was surrounded by a palisade with two entrances: one on the north, the other on the south, each wide enough to allow six mounted knights to pass abreast. These were guarded by two heralds and six pursuivants. Everywhere else were small, wandering detachments of soldiers, delegated to maintaining order among the vast crowd—not an easy task considering that half the country—husbands, wives and children—had been attracted to the famous event. The soldiers’ hands were full, enforcing discipline; they vented their frustration by not restraining the blows that fell upon the heads of those they caught disturbing the peace.
Not far from the northern gate were a dozen gorgeous pavilions, belonging to the twelve principal suitors, each with his distinctive colors displayed on the pennons that fluttered in the wind like aerial serpents. Surrounding these were the tents belonging to the less aristocratic, but no less ardent, princes, barons, knights and whatnot, all huddled together either through friendship or mutual want. Altogether this was a real community, which had its own stables, armorers, farriers, surgeons and artisans—all of whose presence was indispensable. Less dispensable but no less ubiquitous were the hordes of merchants hawking their trinkets and perfumes, honey and olive oil to the ladies, to say nothing of the jugglers, troubadours and minstrels whose wits were as sharp as their purses were empty. Everywhere, as thick as bees in a hive, were the knights themselves and their squires, lackeys and pages.
At the opposite end of the lists, nearest the forest, was raised the magnificent pavilion that belonged to Charlemagne: a vast tent of gold and purple fabric, covered with gold eagles. In front was the imperial box, in which Charlemagne sat with Hildegard and his children.
Down either side of the field were the bleachers that had been erected for the spectators of rank, who promised to be as numerous as the common rabble. They had been arriving in crowds by the hour.