Timeline - Michael Crichton [30]
:
The Equestrian Center outside Souillac was four miles away, and it was here that Marek trained twice a week. In the far corner of a little-used field, he had set up an odd T-shaped bar on a revolving stand. At one end of the T-bar was a padded square; at the other end, a leather teardrop that looked like a punching bag.
This was a quintain, a device so ancient that it had been drawn by monks at the edges of illuminated manuscripts a thousand years earlier. Indeed, it was from just such drawings that Marek had fashioned his own version.
Making the quintain had been simple enough; it was much more difficult to get a decent lance. This was the kind of problem Marek faced again and again in experimental history. Even the simplest and most common items from the past were impossible to reproduce in the modern world. Even when money was no object, thanks to the ITC research fund.
In medieval times, tournament lances were turned on wood lathes more than eleven feet long, which was the standard length of a jousting lance. But wood lathes of that size hardly existed anymore. After much searching, Marek located a specialty woodworking plant in northern Italy, near the Austrian border. They were able to turn out lances of pine to the dimensions he specified, but were astonished to hear he wanted an initial order of twenty. “Lances break,” he told them. “I’ll need a lot of them.” To deal with splinters, he fitted a piece of screening to the faceplate of a football helmet. When he wore this helmet riding, he drew considerable attention. He looked like a demented beekeeper.
Eventually, Marek succumbed to modern technology, and he had his lances turned in aluminum, by a company that made baseball bats. The aluminum lances had better balance and felt more authentic to him, even though they were wrong for the period. And since splintering was no longer a problem, he could just wear a standard riding helmet.
Which was what he was wearing now.
Standing at the end of the field, he waved to Chris, who was over by the quintain. “Chris? Ready?”
Chris nodded and set the T-bar at right angles to Marek. He waved. Marek lowered his lance, and spurred his horse forward.
Training with the quintain was deceptively simple. The rider galloped toward the T-bar, attempting to strike the padded square with the tip of his lance. If he succeeded, he set the T-bar spinning, obliging him to spur his mount past before the leather bag swung around and hit him in the head. In the old days, Marek knew, the bag had been heavy enough to knock a young rider from his mount. But Marek made it just heavy enough to deliver a stinging rebuke.
On his first run, he hit the pad squarely, but he was not quick enough to avoid the bag, which boxed him on the left ear. He reined up, and trotted back. “Why don’t you try one, Chris?”
“Maybe later,” Chris said, repositioning the T-bar for the next run.
Once or twice in recent days, Marek had gotten Chris to try a run at the quintain. But he suspected that was only because of Chris’s sudden recent interest in all aspects of horsemanship.
Marek turned his charger, reared, and charged again. When he first began, galloping full tilt toward a foot-square target had seemed absurdly difficult. Now he was getting the hang of it. He generally hit the target four out of five times.
The horse thundered ahead. He lowered his lance.
“Chris! Hallo!”
Chris turned, and waved to the girl riding up on horseback. At that moment, Marek’s lance hit the pad, and the leather bag swung around, knocking Chris flat on his face.
:
Chris lay there, stunned, hearing peals of girlish laughter. But she quickly dismounted and helped him to his feet again. “Oh Chris, I’m sorry to laugh,” she said in her elegant British accent. “It was all my fault, in any case. I oughtn