by Clint Dohmen
“That may be, dear Henry, but he allies himself with the House of York at the moment, so he is your enemy regardless of your personal feelings.”
Henry sighed because he knew that Anne was right, but he really didn’t want to see Francis come to harm. Francis had sheltered him and supported his cause for years, and he could not forget that kindness, regardless of his current diplomatic leanings. “And if I win?”
“I will support another expedition for you to take the throne.”
Henry jolted straight upright in his seat. She knows damn well I can’t attack Richard with my five hundred men alone. She also knows I don’t have the money to hire enough mercenaries to complete the task. But with the help of France, that could all change. He had no choice. “I accept your bet, Madame.” Then he turned to watch the competition with a sense of uneasiness. The throne of England could be decided in one contest of arms.
Chapter 30
SIMON LOOKED ACROSS the field at their final opponents. In addition to two gold and blue shields, a third shield bearing the white, X-shaped cross of St Andrew on a blue background hung on the middle pole: one of the French King’s elite Garde Écossaise: The Scottish Guard.
With the mutual enmity of England in common, France and Scotland had always been loosely allied. But what started out as the occasional band of Scotsmen crossing the channel to aid France in her wars with England gradually evolved into Scotsmen making up regular companies in the French army. The best and fiercest warriors from these companies were selected for the Scottish Guard. In addition to being a feared unit on the battlefield, the Scottish Guard served as the French King’s immediate bodyguard. It looked as though Simon was going to find out how elite “elite” was in France.
As had become customary in the tournament, Kojiro picked out his opponent first and moved in for the ‘kill.’ This time, after his traditional two-armed windmill, Kojiro brought both swords down overhead onto the knight who stood on the left.
The French knight deflected one blow with his shield and the other with his sword. Kojiro spun to his left and struck horizontally backwards at what he thought would be his opponent’s back, but instead he struck the shield of the towering Scotsman who had initially been in the center. The Scot had closed ranks and stepped to his teammate’s right. Kojiro did not think this was honorable behavior; a man should fight his own battles.
Kojiro looked at his new opponent and stabbed forward below the man’s shield with his left sword while swinging horizontally towards his first opponent with his right. The Scotsman brought his shield down with a tremendous grunt, nearly knocking the sword out of Kojiro’s left hand, while his first opponent parried his right sword stroke with his own longsword.
Charles VIII clapped with delight as the captain of his personal bodyguard displayed his prowess for all to see. Anne de Beaujeu smiled and winked at Henry while the French in the crowd erupted in cheers.
Henry’s palms began to sweat. Until now, no one had yet survived the crane warrior’s initial onslaught.
Neno attacked the knight on the right with pounding overhead blows as he always did. However, he quickly learned that he could not just bully this Frenchman like he had all his previous opponents. The man was not nearly his equal in strength, but he made up for it with the speed and skill of his sword strokes. And to make matters worse, the enemy defended each other when one of them did get outmaneuvered. In frustration, Neno slammed the other man’s shield with his own and received a rap across the back of his shoulders from the second Frenchman’s sword for his efforts.
Kojiro did not think his opponents fought honorably, but he had to admit that they fought well. Individually, he knew he could take any of them—save perhaps the large Scotsman, that would be a contest—but since the enemy worked seamlessly together, he could not find an opening. In fact, he himself had been pressed hard as his opponents effectively used their shields as a weapon, punching at Kojiro’s face and torso then always stepping back to stand together with their teammates.
The Scotsman fought with consummate skill, and Simon found himself fighting to the best of his ability for the first time in the tournament. Even fighting at his best, however, Simon could not break through the giant Celt’s defense. Inside Simon’s armet, the sweat poured down his forehead like rain.
Anne de Beaujeu was in a win-win situation. She had intended to finance and equip another expedition for Henry anyway, but if she won the bet, she could also use Henry and his knights to help bring Brittany into the nation of France. She had never seen the captain of the Garde Écossaise lose a fight. Ever. And in spite of the skill of the foreign warriors, she did not think he would do so today.
Henry studied the teamwork of the French and found he liked it. They formed like an old-fashioned Saxon shield wall when on defense, and their teamwork was impeccable. But he had to win this bet. He desperately hoped his distant relative from Exeter had some kind of plan.
Simon could not break their shield wall. All the usual tactics, stabbing low, crushing overhead blows, physically pushing them backwards, were all countered by the skilled French knights and their powerful Scottish ally. It was getting tiresome.
The only upside to their opponents’ defensive teamwork was that they did not stray far enough from their teammates to mount any sustained attacks of their own. Simon guessed that their tactic was to wait until their opponents’ sword strokes became weaker and slower, at which point they would leave their defensive formation and attack. Simon looked at Kojiro and Neno and thought that with Neno’s aggressive pounding blows, he would be reaching that point soon.
Neno’s arms were getting tired. The French and the Scotsman countered all of his blows, and their conservative defensive movements left them quite a bit fresher. But Neno had fought Turks, pirates, and Genoese for days on end; he could fight through sore arms. While the contest ebbed and flowed, the crowd cheered and screamed insults at the combatants. Most of these insults were based entirely upon the nationality of the insulter and the insulted, but all were truly enjoying the spectacular demonstration of swordplay.
In the arena, a conversation began as well. “You know Ai’ll be wearing your head for a hat now, doncha?” the Scotsman offered to Simon.
“Why do Scottish farmers herd their cattle to the edge of the cliffs?” Simon returned as he swatted away a powerful overhead blow.
“I’m sure ye’ll tell me.”
“They push back harder.” Simon delivered the punch line along with a stabbing thrust that the Scot blocked with his shield. The Scotsman roared with a deep laugh that echoed from the inside of his close helm, then he stabbed back.
Kojiro, like Simon, deduced that the French were waiting for them to tire, and since Kojiro was the most active person in the arena, he guessed that they might assume he would be the first to wear down. He encouraged them in this assumption by striking a flurry of blows that brought the crowd to its feet, then by subtly reducing the strength of his blows as they progressed.
He did not think these skilled opponents would fall for anything less than his best deception. Up until now in the competition, there had been no competition, but now Kojiro was finding out that there were western knights in addition to Simon, Neno, and Aldo that had real combat skills. As the strength and duration of Kojiro’s blows diminished, all three of their opponents began to conserve less energy and counterattack more forcefully when they got a shot at him.
“I’m afraid the smaller one seems to be losing some of his flair,” Anne said to Henry. She had seen the Guard captain wear out his enemies before, but she’d never seen it take this long. After a few of his powerful blows, his enemies usually folded. This Englishman and his men were certainly knights to be reckoned with. She would be glad if Henry could persuade them into his service, and thereby hers.
“Yes, I’m afraid you may be right,” Henry replied dejectedly, because he certainly had never seen a man who could fight as long and as energetically as the Crane warrior had, yet he di
d appear to be tiring and the captain of the Scots Guard was not yielding an inch.
Neno was forced to take a step backwards when the Scotsman struck at him from the side; his sore arms could not fully deflect the tremendously strong blow. Unwittingly though, he assisted Kojiro with his plan, and that was enough. Seeing Neno’s momentary loss of balance from the Scotsman’s blow, the Frenchman across from Neno began to batter him backwards the way Neno himself had done to so many opponents before. Neno was able to deflect most of the blows, but the Frenchman ably countered his return strikes and continued to drive him back towards his own shield on the pole.
Their opponents had broken the shield wall.
The Scotsman, not entirely convinced by Kojiro’s performance, nor Neno’s apparent loss of strength, yelled at his teammate to come back, but it was too late. As soon as the Frenchman vacated his position in the shield wall, Kojiro stepped into it so quickly the move was impossible to counter. From his position on the Scot’s flank, Kojiro stabbed his sword up and below the plate neck guard that made up the lower portion of the Scot’s close helm. The sword was a tight fit in that small space, but it was a killing thrust. Kojiro held his blade motionless in that position.
The Scot captain admired the control it took for the man to have thrust so quickly at such a small opening yet to have stopped short of injuring him.
“I yield, ye little bastard!” the Scotsman bellowed out goodheartedly. “Kindly ramove that thing from me head, if you will.”
Kojiro quickly withdrew his blade and bowed to the man.
“Polite wee bastard, isn’t he?” the giant Scot mumbled, then removed his helmet, revealing a wide grin. Sir Walter Scott had not lost a tournament battle since he was a child, but far from being bitter, he was pleased to have met such worthy competition.
Without help from his colleagues, Simon’s Frenchman was no match for Simon’s sword skills. He was quickly battered into submission. The Frenchman who had taken off after Neno soon discovered that Neno was not as tired as he had suspected. Using a technique that he had learned from Kojiro, Neno grabbed his opponent’s sword arm and pulled it forward in the direction it was initially headed. He then turned into his opponent so they were both facing in the direction of his opponent’s momentum and planted his right leg in front of his opponent’s right leg. The movement had its desired result, and the Frenchman flipped over his leg and onto his back. Neno pressed his sword to the eye opening in the man’s visor, and the match was over.
As the English in the crowd screamed their approval, Henry took a deep, relieved breath. He then looked at the King and the King’s regent sister and saw that they did not seem overly displeased, which was just as important as winning the bet since a bet was just words; a regent lived within the boundaries of behavior set by themselves.
Anne looked into Henry’s studying eyes and laughed. “I’ll have Brittany without your help, Henry. I never counted on it anyway. I just thought a wager might add some excitement to our match today, and based on your reaction to the fight, I was successful. Fantastic entertainment! I’ve never seen Sir Walter Scott lose at anything before. I don’t even want to know how drunk he’s going to be tonight or how many fights he’s going to start. And yes, I will supply you with troops and money. If that bastard Richard wants to keep supporting French rebels, I will give him a reason to pay closer attention to his own damn country. No offense intended.”
“None taken, Madame, I cannot express my gratitude enough.” Henry was going back to England, and he was going to do it with French support.
The king, the regent, and their entourage walked to the dais to present the awards. The dais had been built at the lowest end of the box seats, just behind the wooden palisade that separated the noble spectators from the arena. The king, since he was the sponsor of the tournament, stood on the dais and waited while the winning team approached.
Simon, Neno, and Kojiro bowed to the king then knelt in front of him with one knee bent and one on the ground.
“Rise, skilled knights, your performance was magnificent!”
The trio rose, and Simon eyed the very large and very heavy looking bag in the king’s hand. He had to consciously force his eyes away from it.
The king spoke again. “Based on the demonstration of swordsmanship I witnessed today, it is my pleasure to have sponsored the contest at which it could be viewed.” The English soldiers and lords cheered the French king loudly at his magnanimous pronouncement. He then used both hands and extended the bag over the palisade.
Simon forced himself to walk, not run, towards the bag of gold coins. Upon receiving his prize, he bowed deeply before returning to his teammates. He could not control the smile on his face.
“Why, that’s a curious bow.” Henry remarked to Jasper as they watched the man in the crane armor look at the French boy-king and bend at the waist with his hands at his sides.
“That it is, Harry, that it is. I’m looking forward to learning more about that interesting gentleman.”
Chapter 31
THE FEASTING THAT night was the most spectacular yet. Simon and his entourage sat at the head of the English table inside one of the great feasting tents. The air smelled of roast mutton and the wine, mead, and cider flowed freely. Neno worked on a gigantic leg of lamb while Simon and Aldo discussed the merits of a peppery Bordeaux.
Kojiro sat next to Simon and ate quietly, marveling at the barbarism of Western eating habits. The food was brought (sometimes by hand) in large portions to the table where the guests used knives and their hands to cut or break off bite-sized portions.
Knives at the table! Kojiro did not understand why weapons would be used as utensils at the table. The civilized thing to do of course was to have the portions cut in the kitchen, then served in the proper sizes at the table.
In order not to offend, Kojiro forced himself to eat pieces of meat that other men had touched with their filthy hands, which would have been unappetizing enough had he not known how infrequently the English washed themselves. Kojiro’s thoughts about what the men had been doing with their hands before dinner were thankfully interrupted when Henry Tudor entered the tent with Jasper Tudor and John Cheyne in tow. The entire tent went silent as the men bowed to Henry. Two men, whose sense of balance had long since disappeared into their cups of mead, fell over as they attempted to bow.
Henry spoke. “Carry on, men. Enjoy the feast. England had but one entrant into the contest, and he won it. I think that is cause for celebration!” The Englishmen toasted and cheered their king and their victorious countryman and, as Henry showed no signs of wishing to speak further, they returned to their commitment to inebriation.
Simon stood as Henry made his way towards him and offered the wooden stool upon which he had been sitting. Henry took the seat and gestured for Simon, Neno, Kojiro, and Jasper to sit with him. Aldo, not having taken part in the competition, and not wanting to distract from his friends’ moment of glory, bowed politely to Henry and left in search of better wine. When Kojiro stood to do the same, Henry gestured that he should stay.
“I wanted a look at this mysterious foreigner from a faraway land who fights like a whirlwind. I also want to meet this distant relative of mine who has managed to keep himself free of what some are now calling the Wars of the Roses.”
Simon answered. “I’m afraid any relation between us is extremely remote, Your Majesty, and even under penalty of torture, I would not be able to tell you what it was. Genealogy was never a favorite subject of mine.”
“An Englishman that does not brag about his distinguished heritage? Well, you’re a bit of an oddity, aren’t you?” The question was serious.
“Quite so, I believe. My mother tried to force that knowledge into my head, but I’m afraid I was ever a poor pupil. It can be difficult to force things into this thick head of mine.”
“Apparently that did not apply to your sword lessons from what I’ve observed, nor your navigational training from what I’ve heard of your reputat
ion.”
“You flatter me, Your Majesty, but I suppose if I had spent less time sailing, and more time listening to my mother, I would know how I was related to you.”
“My uncle assures me you’re distant enough that you pose no threat to me and that is as far as I care.” Henry smiled warmly. “I gather dear Richard, however, has not come to the same conclusion?”
“You are correct, Majesty. Both Richard and Edward before him seem bothered by the fact that some bastard fifth cousin of mine, three times removed, used to be the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the butler of a King Edward or a King John or a King Henry or something like that. And because of that, they’ve tried to kill me.”
“That was roughly Jasper here’s assessment of your claim to the throne as well.” Henry smiled again. “Then you’ve come here to join me and end these attempts on your life?” he asked.
It was the very opening Simon had hoped joining the tournament would give him. “I have, Your Majesty, if you will have me.”
“If I will have you?” Henry laughed softly as he spoke the words slowly. “I plan to take London and kill Richard, yet I have very few men with which to do it. Richard is a renowned warrior and a skilled campaigner whereas I have no experience whatsoever. In fact, it appears I will be relying a great deal on the French to take back the throne of England. If that’s not a bitter irony, I don’t know what is. And you present me with the option of obtaining the services of a man who has just bested the best swords in all of Europe. I’m afraid for your sake that I shall have to say ‘yes.’ I will most certainly welcome you to follow me into my folly.”
Folly was something that had never factored much into the decisions Simon made. “I pledge my fealty to you, Majesty.”
“I accept. Might I ask what the Venetian and this horribly fascinating yet unnervingly quiet warrior of the crane may do?” Henry used the term that the camp finally seemed to have settled on when referring to Kojiro. Kojiro had overheard conversations describing him thusly, and since it was far from insulting, he’d made no effort to introduce himself with his true name.