The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [160]
Stars and Parrots. She knew a lot about jousting. The ladies retired. Sersanders gazed at him for a moment, his eyes unusually wide, and then lowered his visor and, turning, trotted to one end of the field. Nicholas took the other, and spurred forward the moment the trumpets blew.
Their horses looked the same. The rules said they had to be matched. There was no advantage, therefore, in ramming together and hoping to unsettle the other man so that a blow might unseat him. So they each took their time, cantering evenly, closing the gap. They had almost reached the space before the King’s stand when Sersanders suddenly drove his spurs in and came hard towards Nicholas, his sword ready to strike from the flank.
Behind the visor, his eyes were unreadable, whereas Nicholas knew the glow from the stand lit his own face. He took measure, fast, with his eyes. Sersanders watched him and struck. In a dazzle of sparks, his blade met that of Nicholas, in a direct counter that nothing had signalled. Nicholas felt the other sword momentarily yield: with luck it might even have fallen. Then they were apart, and the dance could begin.
It was a dance. Combat was the deployment of ruses. Sersanders knew some, Nicholas others. Tellingly, the bay he was riding knew most. It was an old way of gaining ascendancy: to use a horse trained on the sports field. Not in battle, of course, but for this kind of fight, which depended on speed and lightness and agility.
Not that Sersanders was anyone’s dupe. After the first moments, circling, stretching, striking, he could see well enough how Nicholas was using his weight to guide and instruct the horse, and how sensitively the horse was responding. It meant he had to change his own strategy. That, or be made to look less than professional, here, before the cream of a nation.
And that was not what Nicholas wanted. This was not merely an event in a tournament: it was an encounter of honour for Sersanders. Sersanders shamed would arouse the whole Adorne faction in Scotland. At the same time, Nicholas had his own plans. He was performing, as Sersanders was, for the King and for Albany. And he didn’t intend to get hurt.
It made a good fight. He liked the feel of the sword, five feet of it, in his hand, and liked to open his shoulders, using his extra reach, his extra height. Sersanders had never fought, as Nicholas had, with mercenaries, or been trained by a mercenary leader, despite his years of careful teaching by Adorne and his father, and the perpetual practice offered by the societies.
Simon was one of the few men Nicholas knew who had done both: practised the art of chivalric warfare and also fought in the field for his own country against foreign knights and their followers. He himself had not, of course, met Simon in formal combat with weapons of chivalry. Or not yet. Or not unless you counted a few moments in Venice.
The thoughts were fragmented, and sprang from what was immediately happening – from the type of blow, of parry, of feint which recalled something else. Tzani-bey had been short. Tzani-bey had compensated in ways forbidden in chivalry. It was not permitted to injure the other man’s horse, or strike a weaponless man, or change weapons. Nicholas reached the conclusion, wheeling, striking, tapping, that jousting was not really interesting. Sixteen blows. Seventeen. (When?)
On the other hand, Sersanders was making it interesting. Being fit, he had recovered well from the earlier fight. He had also, by now, assessed what he was facing. He had further assessed, Nicholas saw with pleasure, that the blows he faced had no malice behind them, and that he was being offered a chance, to his surprise, to engage in a bout of lively and high-quality swordsmanship.
Which did not make it easy. The swift turns, the bending, the swoops which drew roars from the crowd