The Last Enchantment - Mary Stewart [142]
The two combatants were armed with spears and shields, and each man had sword and dagger at his belt. Arthur was not using Caliburn, the royal sword. His armour -- a light helmet and leather corselet -- showed neither jewel nor device. Melwas' dress was more princely, and he was a shade the taller. He looked fierce and eager, and I saw him cast a look toward the palace tower where the Queen stood. Arthur had not glanced that way. He looked cool and infinitely experienced, listening apparently with grave attention to the herald's formal announcement.
There was a sycamore tree to one side of the field. Bedwyr, beside me in its shade, gave me a long look, and then drew a breath of relief.
"So. You're not worried. Thank God for that!"
"It had to come to this in the end. It's best. But if there had been danger for him, I would have stopped it."
"All the same, it's folly. Oh, I know that he wanted to, but he should never risk himself so. He should have let me do it."
"And what sort of showing would you make, do you suppose? You're still lame. You could have been cut down, if not worse, and then the legend would have had to start again. There are still simple folk who think that right is with the strongest sword."
"As it is today, or you'd not be standing idly by. I know. But I wish..." He fell silent.
"I know what you wish. I think you will have your wish, not once but many times, before your life's end."
He glanced sharply at me, started to say something more, but then the pennon fell, and the fight had begun.
For a long time the men circled one another, spears poised for the throw, shields ready. The light advantaged neither. It was Melwas who attacked first. He feinted once, then, with great speed and strength behind the throw, hurled the spear. Arthur's shield flashed up to deflect it. The blade slid screaming past the boss, and the spear buried itself harmlessly in the grass. Melwas, snatching for his sword-hilt, sprang back. But Arthur, in the same moment as he turned the spear aside, flung his own. By doing so he cancelled the advantage that Melwas' first thrown had given him; but he did not draw his own sword; he reached for the other's spent spear, upright by him in the turf, pulled it up, and hefted it, just as Melwas, abandoning his sword-hilt, sent the King's spear also whizzing harmlessly from his shield, and turned, swift as a fox, to pick it up in the same way and face spear with spear once more.
But Arthur's weapon, harder flung, and more desperately parried, flew spinning to one side, to bounce level along the turf and skid away from Melwas' hand. There was no hope of snatching it up before Arthur could throw. Melwas, shield at the ready, feinted this way and that, hoping to draw the other's spear and so regain the advantage. He reached the fallen weapon; he stooped for it where it lay, the shaft half-propped to his hand by a clump of thistles. Arthur's arm moved, and the blade of his spear flashed in the light, drawing Melwas' eye. Melwas ducked, throwing his shield up into the line of the cast, at the same time swerving down to grab the fallen weapon. But the King's move had been a false one; in the unguarded moment when Melwas stooped sideways for the other spear, the King's, thrown straight and low, took him in the outstretched arm. Arthur's sword whipped into his hand as he followed the spear.
Melwas staggered. As a great shout hit the walls and echoed round the field he recovered, grabbed the spear, and hurled it straight at the King.
Had he been any less fast, Arthur must have closed with him before he could use the spear. As it was, Melwas'