by Ron Miller
I was so angry that I scarcely noticed that Renaud had regained his wits and was again charging me. I merely laughed out loud. Why should he worry me? I said to him with as much contempt as I could muster: “Why don’t you run along, you miserable wretch? I’ve got much more important business to take care of. Does being knocked senseless give you some sort of thrill? I might as well warn you now: if you force me to, I’ll strip you of your armor and give you the beating of your life!”
Renaud might as well have been deaf for all the good my warnings did. He rode right up to me and swung his sword at my helmet. I have to say in all honesty that I hardly felt a thing.
[“That’s hard to believe, Marfisa,” said Bradamant. “That sword was Fusberta—it should have cut you in half like a cheese.”
“What can I say? What happened, happened.”]
By this time I’d had enough of this. There were after all more important things awaiting me. It took only three blows from my sword to slice his shield to pieces, shatter his armor and draw blood from his side. I grinned when I saw that Renaud’d finally lost his temper: I’d obviously wounded something more precious than his flesh.
I doubt if Renaud’d ever experienced a battle like that one. He threw the remnant of his shield away and attacked with his sword held in both hands. To my astonishment, the blow sent my shield flying and I felt a terrific shock in my left shoulder. I dropped my reins more from astonishment than pain. I was infuriated by Renaud’s counterattack. I raised myself in my stirrups and swung at Renaud just as he struck at me again. Our blades met in a shower of sparks. What was the name of your brother’s sword again?
[“Fusberta”]
Yes. Fusberta cut my own sword in two as though it were made of wood. The point went spinning away to impale itself into the earth like a dart. That blade was the most valuable thing I owned and I believe I went mad for a time. I abandoned all of my art and rained blows upon Renaud like an angry wife. For his part, he kept his cool and managed to parry all of my wild srokes. Thinking that I saw an opening in his guard, I took a vicious swipe at his head. If it had landed, I can tell you that you would not be worrying today about your brother’s fate. As it were, he ducked beneath my swing and landed such a powerful right-handed blow that the stump of my sword fell from my numbed hand.
If I had been mad before, I was a fury now. There had never in the world been a frenzy to equal mine. I dug my spurs cruelly deep into my horse and it leaped like a Pegasus. I flew into Renaud like a rabid boar. With my fists alone I pummeled at his armored face. I battered him so ferociously he must’ve thought the first part of our duel was childsplay. I was thrilled to see blood streaming from beneath his helmet—spurting from nose and mouth and ears.
[“I think,” said Bradamant, “that if Renaud hadn’t possessed the magic helmet of Mambrino, you would have knocked his head off!”
“Was that what it was? Well, no doubt about that whatsoever!”]
In spite of that defense, I could see that I’d rattled his brains. I think for a short while he lost his senses, too, just as I had. In any event, stunned as he was, Renaud managed to retain his seat. I was about to take advantage of his confusion and end the fight then and there when his horse bolted, flying away from me so swiftly that its hooves barely disturbed the flowers and grass beneath them.
[“That would have been Rabican. There never was a swifter horse.”
I can tell you I was shocked speechless. I retrieved my sword and set off in pursuit. I was almost upon Renaud when I could see him shake his head. As soon as he regained his wits, he reined in his great steed and wheeled around to face me. I could see in his face that the end of the duel was imminent. It was in the full fury of revenge and it was made no prettier for the blood that streamed down it.
Thinking that an angry man makes a careless opponent, I taunted him further: “What a display of cowardice!” I cried. “You low, vile soul! Look at you! Running from a woman! What would Count Roland say if he could see you now, unable to defeat a maiden?”
He squeezed the hilt of his sword so tightly I thought that metal would soon start oozing from between his fingers. We’d fought for nearly an entire day without much to be said for either side, I admit. Renaud hadn’t a seam or plate of his armor that wasn’t split or cracked somewhere. I could actually feel the shame that radiated from him. I felt some little remorse at having so greatly embarassed and disgraced such a famous knight. I knew that in spite of my own fame as a warrior he’d still be vituperated for allowing a woman to make him yield more than he had advanced.
I would have cared more if I myself hadn’t been so enraged. And I have to admit that I showed it more than he did. I raged, I screamed, I growled and hissed like an animal. I wished aloud that I’d never been born since in all my life I’d never spent so much time fighting an enemy with so little result. My shield’d been hacked to pieces and my sword cut short and, I admit, I was growing tired and sore. Yet I still had one advantage over your brother: because of my enchanted armor, I had yet to spill even a single droplet of my own blood.
At about this time, I heard the approach of a large number of horses. I glanced over my shoulder and was astonished to see that an entire army had gathered on the hilltop to watch my fight with Renaud. I could see from the banners that it belonged to King Galafron—whom I recognized in the first ranks. I learned later that he’d paused in his pursuit of Agrican just to watch me. I had no idea at the time, of course, but the horse that Renaud was riding—
[“Rabican.”]
Yes. Rabican. Where do you get these names? Anyway, I hadn’t known that this horse had once been owned by Galafron’s son, Argali. Assuming that Renaud was the assassin Feragu, who had stolen the animal, the king took his sword in both hands and charged your brother from behind! Before I could react, he’d struck such a blow that Renaud was knocked half out of his saddle.
I flew into a blind rage at that—king or no king, how dare he interfere in my duel? I turned from Renaud and attacked the old man. It took only a second to unhorse the interloper and place the stump of my sword at his throat. If it’d had a point, he would’ve died then and there.
While the king’s life hung suspended by a thread, Brandimart and Antifor had arrived. Neither one knew me by sight and assumed with some justification that I must be someone from Agrican’s camp. I first knew of this misapprehension when I heard thundering hooves and war cries from behind me. It doesn’t say much for Galafron’s cowardly army that none of them’d yet raised so much as a finger to help their king nor did even one of them follow the two knights to his defense. Well, even though I was on foot and nearly exhausted, it wasn’t much effort to unhorse the first knight to reach me—who I learned later was Antifor, the king of Albarossia. He flew from his saddle like a pinwheel and was unconscious before he struck the ground. The other, Brandimart, wasn’t nearly so easy. Indeed, I’d never met anyone so nearly my match. He knew every art of combat as well I did.
Renaud, I saw from the corner of my eye, had withdrawn from the field and was watching my battle with no little amusement—no doubt pleased to see two Saracens fighting to the death. He probably considered that any disagreement between pagans was entirely out of the hands of his God, and if that deity felt no need to intercede it would be far from him to usurp the task for himself. In any event, Antifor had recovered sufficiently enough to regain his feet, as so had Galafron. Retrieving their weapons, they set upon me, three to one now. Normally I would’ve welcomed such interesting odds, but as you can imagine I was nearly exhausted by then, having already spent most of the day battling Renaud. I felt myself stumble more than once—and any of those times such an error might have proved fatal had I been fighting more skillful opponents. It was only then—obviously deciding that my defeat was a forgone conclusion—that Galafron’s cowardly army decided to charge into the fray. Five hundred men against one woman!
Can you imagine what happened next?
[“Renaud came to your aid,” su
ggested Bradamant.
“How did you guess that?”
“It would have been just like him.”
“Well, you’re perfectly right. He did”]
I heard him call out: “Let me help you! Even if I must die with you! You’re being terribly wronged!”
“Good knight,” I shouted back to him, “if you’re with me, I need nothing else!”
Well, then began a fearsome battle, I can tell you! I’ve seldom seen a bloodier day before or since. I waded through the mob in a fury, whirling, hacking and cutting men left and right! And Renaud was no laggard in dismembering arms, legs and heads, which piled up around us like cordword. There wasn’t one of our enemies who saw us who didn’t pray for Allah to meet him before we did.
“So, you see, Renaud and I were once both enemies and allies at the same time,” Marfisa concluded.
“That was a nice story,” said Bradamant, “but what was the point? Rashid and Renaud are still going to have to fight one another to the death.”
“I don’t know. Are there no alternatives?”
“Such as? I’ve spent every moment since our reunion dreaming of being able to finally make our betrothal public—of being able to be taken into his arms never to leave them again. But what if God has ordained that all of Frankland is to be punished because He’s perceived us as less worthy of preservation than the Saracens? And if in destroying Frankland he also destroys my brother, how could I ever go back to Rashid? Such callousness, such disloyalty, such dishonor would bring down upon my head the rightful loathing of every one of my countrymen. What am I to do, Marfisa? What am I to do?”
“I don’t know.”
* * * * *
It would have been small comfort to Bradamant to know that Rashid felt little better than she did about the upcoming duel with Renaud. His initial reaction to Agramant’s imperial invitation was one of enormous flattery. For a few hours he would be, by proxy, both Agramant himself and all of his armies. An entire empire condensed in one man. It was a daunting responsibility. Yet his elation was short-lived as the terrible cost eventually dawned upon him, as it already had for Bradamant. The profound melancholia that filled him was not engendered by any fear of his opponent—he was not in any way afraid of Renaud, nor any of his brothers and cousins, in any combination, including Roland. No, what terrified him was the realization that Renaud was the brother of his bloodthirsty betrothéd.
He had been receiving almost daily letters from Bradamant, all pretty much of a kind: long missives filled with longing, sadness and endless, plaintive badgering for their imminent reunion. Her complaints about his absence, he knew, would be nothing compared to what she would do if he took to the field and slew her brother. Just as Atalante could transform one object into another with a waggle of a single finger, Rashid would in that one stroke of his lance transform Bradamant’s love to implacable detestation. He also knew that he would be signing his own death warrant, for he had no doubt that the warrioress would hunt him to his death. He feared no knight in the world but her.
Still, there was nothing for it but to prepare as best he could. There was no question of backing down, reneging on his promise, though he had done what little he could to convince Agramant that there were other paladins more worthy of the honor than he—a half-hearted argument at best, it must be admitted. He dared not mention his love for Bradamant. With an empire at stake, honor and duty had little room for such niceties as Rashid’s romance with an enemy knight.
So he did the only thing he could do and began to prepare for the approaching battle—just as Renaud was also doing. Since the duel had been initiated at the request of Agramant, the choice of venue and weapons was the prerogative of the representative of the Holy Roman Empire. Renaud had chosen to fight on foot, armored only in chain mail, with battle axe and dagger. This was a shrewd decision on his part, for without the irresistable Balisard Rashid was at the outset at a slight but perceptible disadvantage. The fight would take place in a broad field just outside the city walls of Arles—in fact, the very field where Bradamant and Marfisa had tried to murder one another and had instead nearly murdered a pair of armies. It had been deserted since the announcement of the duel; a sentence of death was on the head of anyone foolish enough to trespass.
Before Rashid could believe that a week had already elapsed, he saw the pavilions being erected at either end of the lists. Every day he had hoped that some unimaginable alternative would arise that would save him from this fatal quandary, every footstep outside his tent he thought must be some messenger from the king sent to tell him that some other, more worthy knight had been chosen to take his place. Every sound he hoped might be someone delivering a letter from Bradamant, forgiving him for what he must do. But where he had once heard from her almost every day there had been nothing but silence since the duel had been announced. The omininousness of this was almost palpable.
But now the day and hour of the duel had arrived and there was nothing for it but to do his best and pray that Allah would see fit to intervene. As he was helped into his mail, which was new and so brilliantly polished that he looked like a second sun illuminating the interior of his tent, he thought that perhaps the best thing to do would be to carry through with the fight as best he could, up to a point, then, as realistically as possible, allow the Christian knight to slay him. Done properly, no one could find any fault. It would in every way look like a fair fight and a fair victory. Bradamant would be devastated, he knew, and might perhaps be a long time in forgiving her brother, but what was that to his having to bear the knowledge of her hatred for the rest of his life, however short that might prove to be, should he become the murderer of her flesh and blood? The alternative—quietly disappearing and changing his name—seemed monumentally impractical, especially at this stage. If only he had thought of it sooner.
He accepted his arms: fabulously jeweled weapons all eagerly donated by various noblemen and princes (equally eager to begin displaying these nonpareil conversation pieces) and his helmet, which had once been worn by Hector in the Trojan wars.
As he emerged from his tent, his long dark face deeply lined with both resolve and resignation, he saw that Agramant’s army had already taken its place in orderly files behind the imperial pavilion. At its head was Agramant himself, resplendent in the gold and silver and colored silks of his barbarian arms. Rashid took his horse from Marsilius. The king did not for a moment consider it beneath his station to act as squire to the champion. The animal was a magnificent bay charger, the finest horse in all Afric, with black mane and white forehead and fetlocks. He climbed onto its back and rode morosely to join his sovereign. There he took his place by Agramant’s side as an equal. The king glanced at the knight with some anxiety, but misinterpreted the black expression as representing determined ferocity.
On the far side of the field Rashid could see the towering figure of Charlemagne, surrounded by his peers as the sun is by its planets. At the emperor’s side was Renaud with the Duke of Bavaria and the King of Brittany bearing his weapons for him.
For a long moment the two armies faced one another silently, the vast field between them as huge and empty as the void between two planets doomed to collide.
An imam came before Agramant and Rashid and held up a copy of the Koran. The king placed his hand on the book and swore that if Rashid were defeated the Saracens would sail for Afric that same day, that he would pay tribute to Charlemagne and that an immediate and perpetual truce would ensue that would endure forever.
“I swear,” Agramant continued with grim earnestness, “with Mahomet as my witness, that I bind myself and my descendants to give to Charlemagne and whomever should succeed him twenty measures of gold every year should Rashid fail to kill his Christian opponent. If I fail in this, may I and my children be struck down by Thy dreadful wrath, but no one else, so that everyone will know what it is to break one’s promise to Thee.”
On the opposite side of the lists, Rashid could see Charlemagne at his port
able altar and he knew that the emperor was swearing a similar oath to the Christian god.
Then the imam placed the book before Rashid, who swore—as Renaud was now similarly doing—that if his sovereign or an agent of his sovereign were to interrupt the battle that he would from that moment be a vassal to Charlemagne. This was, he thought, the only remaining loophole in the net that bound him—but the chance that either king would so fatally interfere with the duel, or allow anyone else to interfere, was less than infinitesimal. His doom was sealed.
These formalities concluded, Rashid rode away from Agramant and his rank and file to the border of the battlefield. He strained his eyes for Bradamant, but nowhere did he get even so much as a glimpse of white armor. He was disappointed but not surprised.
There was a fanfare of trumpets and for a moment Rashid thought the sound was a product of his own disordered brain. He could see Renaud spurring his great warhorse onto the field and his own mount, more aware of what was expected than the bewildered knight on its back, took its first steps forward.
There was no hurry. Both knights circled one another, each taking stock of his opponent with lazy caution. Then, as if on a signal, they charged, battle axes raised, the massive hooves of their horses pounding the earth like blacksmiths’ hammers. The knights met in the center of the field like two comets, showering the field with the sparks that flew from their clashing weapons, dazzling the spectators whose response was the same soft, choral ahhh normally reserved for fireworks displays.