The Iron Tempest

by Ron Miller

  The woman put her long-fingered hands on either side of his face and leaned close to him; her hawkish features filled his eyes; her breath smelled like cinnamon.

  “For my part,” she said at last, “I think I’d rather face insanity than humor.”

  “But which is it?”

  “How would I know?” she replied in her husky, sibilant voice. “So for that reason alone, be careful, my love.”

  He was still pondering the mystery when he was summoned to Agramant’s tent. When he arrived, he was not particularly surprised to see the Emir Marsilius there as well, nor by the presence of two or three of his brother knights. Though the Spaniard had proved an invaluable and loyal ally, Rashid personally felt nothing but contempt for a man who would so easily abandon both his faith and his country.

  “You seem fully recovered from your illness,” said Agramant.

  “Yes, your highness,” replied Rashid. “Thanks to Marfisa, I can get around quite well now. Indeed, I see no reason why I can’t return to your service.”

  “In due time, my boy, in due time. Meanwhile, there’s the question of this challenge.”

  “Challenge?”

  “Yes. Some fool knight is making a positive nuisance of himself, riding up and down outside the city walls, blowing an infernal trumpet and shouting for you to ride out and fight him.”

  “Oh that. I have no idea who it may be, your highness. I myself received word of this challenge only a few minutes ago.”

  “Well, someone apparently thinks you’ve wronged them.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m not responsible for every lunatic’s fantasy.”

  “Of course not.”

  “The only thing to do, it seems to me, your highness, would be for me to ride out and either see what this is all about or silence the fellow.”

  “Well, I’d certainly appreciate that. My mind’s occupied enough without silly distractions like this.”

  Rashid could only look chastened at this mild rebuke.

  “Your highness,” said one of the knights, a young man whom Rashid had not previously met, though he knew he bore the rather peculiar name of Serpentine de la Stella, “there’s no point to Sir Rashid bothering himself with every halfwit who happens to own a sword and a big mouth. There’s no honorable challenge here, only a nuisance, like a mad dog. I’ll gladly go out and settle this once and for all.”

  “But your highness—” began Rashid, but Agramant’s raised hand silenced him.

  “Serpentine, you may do as you suggest.”

  “Thank you, your highness,” he said and marched from the tent.

  “Oh, your highness!” protested Rashid. “This is infamous! I can certainly fight my own battles!”

  “Serpentine was right, Rashid: it’s only a nuisance. And, besides, I want you in perfect health for the new campaign that Emir Marsilius and I have been scheming. Charlemagne has not yet heard my last word! That will be all.”

  Rashid was dismissed.

  “Yes, your highness,” was all he could say, but the king was no longer listening.

  The news about the idiot or madman who had been orbiting the city tootling away on his trumpet and making the most insulting accusations against Agramant’s favorite knight was soon the talk of all the city. The result was that when Serpentine finally rode out to meet the challenger, the city walls were crowded with spectators. Only the newborn and the dimwitted failed to make an appearance. Even Agramant and Marsilius could not forego climbing to one of the towers to witness the diverting spectacle. The young knight trotted through the gate resplendent in a surcoat embroidered with gold, silver and precious gems. A great cheer was raised at his appearance and he swung his plumed helmet in a flamboyant salute before donning it. He had only just done so, and turned to face the mysterious challenger, when he saw that person bearing down upon him at full tilt, a steel avalanche with a golden lance aimed straight for his heart. He dropped his own weapon and spurred his horse but it was too late. The other’s point caught him squarely in the chest, sending him pinwheeling to the earth twenty yards away. His mount leaped away in a single vast bound like a grasshopper. Raising himself unsteadily onto an elbow, bracing for the fatal coup de grâce, Serpentine was amazed to see his expected executioner pursue the panicked horse, grasp its dangling reins and lead the animal back to him. He stumbled painfully to his feet as the reins were handed back to him. “Get back on your horse,” the mysterious stranger said, “and tell your master to send me a better champion.”

  On the tower, Agramant turned to Marsilius, who was laughing perhaps a little bit too heartily. “Did you see that?” he asked the Cordovan king. “What a madman! He had every right to claim Serpentine’s horse as a prize, or to at least take the boy prisoner! Well, we shall give him the better champion he craves so much.”

  The Saracen knights who had joined the two kings in the tower now all clamored for the honor of punishing the upstart. Marsilius suggested Grandonio of Volterna, pointedly suggesting that perhaps a Spaniard might have better luck than a Moor.

  Grandonio was a dark, powerfully-built, hairy man, perpetually angry, and he rode out shouting threats to the other knight. “You’ll soon regret your courtesy,” he cried. “After I knock you from your saddle I’ll take you as prisoner to meet my king—except that I might kill you first. I am notoriously careless about such things.”

  “You can be as boorish as you like, but you’ll not goad me into lowering my standard of courtesy to meet yours,” Bradamant replied (for of course the mysterious challenger was she). “Therefore I’m compelled to warn you to turn back now before I have to hurt you. Go back and tell your lord that I haven’t come here to fiddle around with blustering fat trifles like you.”

  Grandonio, inarticulate at best, was speechless with fury and, completely unable to speak, he did the only other thing he knew how: he lowered his lance and charged. Bradamant did the same. The Cordovan knight was vaguely aware of a tremendous crash accompanied by a flash of light, like a thunderbolt; when his head cleared he was lying on his back at the end of a furrow ten yards long.

  Once again, Bradamant fetched her opponent’s horse and returned it.

  “Didn’t I warn you,” she said sternly, “that you’d be better off carrying my message? Now, please go back and tell Agramant to choose from among his greatest paladins the one who is truly worthy of jousting with me. The practice has been pleasant and I thank you for it, but I’m tired of wasting my time and energy on inexperienced amateurs.”

  “Who in the world is that?” Agramant wondered aloud.

  “I have no idea,” replied Marsilius. “But I’m beginning to suspect it’s no madman.”

  The knights surrounding the kings peered down from the parapet, but, since Bradamant’s trademark white armor was covered by the surcoat bearing Fiordispina’s cypress motif, which no one recognized, it was impossible to identify her. They began to speculate wildly, mentioning names which caused even some of the most puissant of the knights to shudder. The majority opinion was that it must be Roland, though a few held out for either Renaud or Brandimart. Those who argued for Roland pointed in favor of their argument to the rumor that he had recently gone mad.

  “Allow me to go next,” begged Ferrau, one of Marsilius’ nephews. “Not because I expect to do any better, but if I fall it’ll make the others’ defeat seem a little less hard.”

  Agramant agreed, if now a little reluctantly, and Ferrau descended to the armory, where he carefully picked among the weapons until he found the newest and finest that was available. He chose his steed with the same care, choosing the one among the several hundred splendid animals that seemed the swiftest and surest-footed.

  Unlike the others, he respectfully saluted Bradamant when he appeared on the field and she politely returned the gesture. He rode close enough for the two to be able to speak without shouting.

  “Who are you?” Bradamant asked and Ferrau identified himself. “Well,” she said, “I’ll not do you dishonor by ref
using you, but I’ll tell you that I wish you’d been someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “Rashid,” she replied, hearing her voice break as she said the word and glad that her helmet hid her face, which she felt growing hot. “Rashid!” she repeated in a rush, hoping that Ferrau had not detected the wrong emotion in her voice. “I’ve . . . I’ve heard of his prowess at arms and I’ve come to discover if he’s equal to his reputation. All I want is to see for myself if he’s as good a jouster as rumor claims.” She found herself growing hot again as some evil portion of her brain sniggered at the feeble double entendre.

  Bradamant saw Ferrau gazing at her intently, as though his eyes might bore through her armor like a pair of augurs. She saw him start, his eyes growing wide, then narrow knowingly and she wondered, Has he discovered my ruse? Can he suspect who I am? She was glad that her helmet covered all of her face except her eyes and mouth, but was that enough? Had she made a mistake allowing the young knight to approach so closely?

  Ferrau was close enough to see that the dark eyes that stared so intently back at him were very beautiful indeed, that the stern-looking mouth was deliciously coral-colored and that the voice it uttered had a sweetness that seemed to belie his original suspicion that the mysterious knight was a mere boy. This was, he suddenly realized, no ordinary knight, and he felt as though he had already been vanquished. Even if she never touches me with her lance, he thought, I’ve already been conquered by those eyes.

  “Are you ready?” she asked. “Or are you going to sit there mooning all day? I’m anxious to meet the one I came here for in the first place.”

  “Let’s first see who has the better command of his arms,” replied Ferrau. “If you succeed in unseating me, then the one you’re craving so keenly will come to avenge me.”

  This promise satisfied Bradamant. The two knights parted, rode for a distance, turned and charged. To no one’s real surprise Bradamant’s lance knocked Ferrau from his saddle and as she returned a knight’s horse for the third time that afternoon she demanded: “Get up and do what you promised.”

  A shamefaced Ferrau went to Rashid and told him that the stranger demanded a joust with him and would continue unseating knights until he appeared.

  “Don’t you have any idea who it may be?”

  “No,” said Ferrau, too humiliated to admit that he had confronted a woman and lost. Besides, the memory of those incredible eyes still lingered before him, like the blinding afterimage of the sun.

  Rashid turned to his liege and begged for permission to engage the stranger. Agramant, now too aware of the embarrassment that this interloper was causing him, decided that the novelty of the situation had long since passed and gave Rashid the permission he begged.

  The fact that three competent knights had already been handily toppled by the stranger did not bother Rashid overmuch. He was realistically aware of his prowess and did not doubt for a moment that he would prove victorious. He descended from the tower, calling for his armor and lance. He had started for the stables when he suddenly recalled that Frontino had been restored to him and of all things by the stranger who at this very moment was craving his death. How had the mad knight gotten hold of the horse and why would he then provide Rashid with such a formidable weapon by returning the animal? He pondered this for a moment but, since it seemed irresolvable, decided to ignore the problem. That he had Frontino back was the important thing.

  As he armed himself, his fellow knights crowded around, ostensibly to help, but mainly to continue their debate about the identity of the stranger and offer advice that Rashid ignored. Ferrau was interrogated closely, since his reluctance to talk about his conversation with the stranger elicited not a little suspicion.

  “All right,” he said, giving in to the pressure. “If you must know, I didn’t recognize the knight—at least I’m certain that it’s not anyone you’ve been naming.”

  “Well, who do you think it is then?” another knight pressed.

  “I couldn’t see the face clearly, but at first it looked like Renaud’s younger brother. After realizing how powerful and skillful this knight is, I realized that Reinhold could never have been up to it. He’s good, but not that good. That really leaves only one possibility: Reinhold’s twin sister, Bradamant.”

  Rashid, who had his back turned to the others, started at the mention of his lover’s name. No one in the Saracen camp knew of his infatuation with the Christian maiden and certainly not that he had given her his promise to be baptized.

  “Um. Bradamant, you say?” he said, carefully. “You really think so?”

  “Certainly. Her reputation has her as strong as Renaud or any other knight. In fact, from what I’ve experienced today, she surpasses her brother and, I’d wager, she’d even be a match for Roland!”

  Rashid wondered, in considerable confusion: Could it really be Bradamant? The very thought of her kindled a blaze in his heart that made it flutter in his breast like a piece of sizzling bacon. But at the same time he felt an icy stab of foreboding. If it was Bradamant, why was she so anxious to murder him? Whatever had he done to her? What had gnawed away at her love until all that remained was this hateful kernel? He could not decide whether he ought to ride out to meet her or invent some sort of excuse to call off the joust.

  If there was anyone in that group who had no doubts about what was to be done, it was the tall, dark woman who stood aloofly apart from the others, her long arms crossed, her proud Egyptian head thrown back disdainfully. She was dark as mahogany, her eyes like spheres of polished teak, like black pearls, her hair as black and glossy as a cascade of crude oil. She was as tall as any of the men and, for all her slenderness, powerfully built. Her armor, which she was never seen without, night or day, was enameled a brilliant blood-red.

  While the others argued, she slipped from the armory, mounted her own horse and rode out to meet Bradamant.

  Meanwhile, that warrior maiden was nervously awaiting the appearance of her lover, anxious to make him her prisoner, wondering where the point of her lance would do him the least amount of harm. When she heard the galloping of hoofs at the city gate, she looked up, her heart beating in time with the sound. She scowled when she saw an unfamiliar crest on the newcomer’s helmet—the phoenix that Marfisa had chosen to symbolize both her will to live forever and her lofty disdain for most of the human race. She could not believe that Ferrau had lied to her and had sent yet another substitute for Rashid. Yet this one seemed different—there was a quality about this knight that disturbed her. The others had been playing a game, even if a deadly one. This one seemed to radiate death with the single-mindedness of the barracuda. They made a slow, wary circle of one another.

  “Who are you?” cried Bradamant.

  “My name is Marfisa.”

  Marfisa! Bradamant’s throat seemed to squeeze shut and her heart clenched like an angry fist. Marfisa! The very one who had been enjoying Rashid’s love, the one whom she loathed above all others, whom she hated so passionately that she’d rather die than fail to expunge her grief upon the other’s head. With a strangled oath, she dug her spurs into Rabican’s flanks and lowered her lance with every intention not of merely unseating her rival but of running her through like a skewered shrimp.

  She did not succeed, but Marfisa, for the first time in her life, felt her back strike the hard earth. She was on her feet in an instant, wild with rage, enraged with humiliation, her scythe-shaped yataghan drawn, its bright point dancing like a scorpion’s stinger. Bradamant, who had swung back to confront her enemy, was shocked. “What are you doing? I’ve thrown you and you’re my prisoner! Surrender yourself at once!”

  Speechless with fury, Marfisa’s only answer was an inarticulate howl as she whirled her yataghan like a propellor.

  “You’re as evil and insolent as I expected,” said Bradamant. “You don’t deserve the forbearance I’ve shown the others.”

  Marfisa rushed at her, swinging her weapon so that it looked like lightning flashing from
her fist, but Rabican danced nimbly out of harm’s way as Bradamant hit Marfisa a sidewise blow with the shaft of her lance, sending the Moor tumbling through the dust. Like a spring, Marfisa leaped back to her feet, screeching and spluttering, her eyes sparking like a blacksmith’s forge. Bradamant again knocked her sprawling.

  Meanwhile, the tumult the jousts had raised had attracted some of Charlemagne’s knights from the Christian camp. They did not recognize Bradamant, since her white armor was disguised by the surcoat, but lustily cheered what was obviously a Christian champion. This show disturbed Agramant, who did not at all like this gradual approach of even a few enemy knights—to say nothing of seeing his best knights humiliated before the Christians. By nature a suspicious, cautious man, he feared the events of that morning might be nothing but an elaborate ruse toward some evil end. He gave the order to his remaining champions to descend to the tilting field. There was a glad rush to the armory; among these was the tormented Rashid, who had been watching the battle with pale face and palpitating heart, gripping the parapet so grimly that the stone was pulverized beneath his fingers. There remained ten deep pits when he released them. He, better than anyone else, knew that Marfisa’s prowess was almost limitless and when the combat first started he could hardly bring himself to watch, terrified that he’d be forced to witness the destruction of his beloved Bradamant. But then, what if Bradamant won?

  Although he was amazed and momentarily relieved that the fight had not ended with the first encounter, as the others had done, his anxiety only increased as the combat continued with unabated fury. He could not bear to see either woman injured or killed, yet he could see no other possible outcome. He loved one of them with a fiery passion. He joined the rush from the parapet with every intention of parting the combatants, however dishonorable this act might be—but he had hesitated too long. By the time he had found Frontino and rode through the gate his comrades in arms had gained the field ahead of him. Seeing that the Christian knight was clearly the stronger of the two, the Saracens rushed into the fray with the intention of preventing her victory. Infuriated by this unchivalrous interference, Charlemagne’s knights rushed forward, drawing their own weapons.