by Ron Miller
Now the battle began in earnest, in its full, unabated ferocity, a hurricane, a whirlwind of steel.
From the first stroke, Rashid fought on the defensive, feinting at Renaud’s head or body, parrying rather than striking. He could see the surprise in his opponent’s eyes, the bewilderment and even resentment at such unvalorous timidity. But in those same dark eyes he could also see Bradamant and every stroke of his battle axe seemed to be falling upon her. If Renaud’s armor had been white Rashid would have been completely incapacitated. He was more fortunate than he knew, therefore, that Charlemagne had not chosen Reinhold, Bradamant’s twin. Rashid kept Renaud at bay with the butt of his axe or by swinging at him with the axe-head reversed, more uncertain than ever as to what his fate ought to be. If he returned a stroke at all, for appearance’s sake, he made certain it was at a spot that would do Renaud the least harm. There would be no pleasure for him, no honor in killing the other knight, yet neither had he any special desire to die himself. But if he survived the duel he knew he’d only be postponing that death for he was more certain than ever that Bradamant would avenge both her brother’s murder and her betrayal by killing him—and he would not raise a hand to prevent her because he’d rather be dead than live with her hatred and scorn . . . or the constant fear of imminent destruction.
Renaud obviously had no such qualms and lay into his opponent with ferocious pitilessness. It was all Rashid could do to keep that hail of steel from his head and limbs which otherwise would have been scattered over the lists like bloody confetti.
King Agramant watched the battle with no less dismay. He could not understand why his greatest champion was so reluctant to fight—it was obvious that the battle had been entirely one-sided from the very outset. He knew Rashid was no coward, that had been proven a thousand times, and he had never once doubted his paladin’s loyalty. Yet, there he was, with his sovereign’s very kingdom at stake, fighting like the most timorous novice.
He wrung his hands fretfully. Was Rashid’s traitorousness obvious, or was it magnified in his perception by the high stakes involved? He glanced at the grim, unreassuring faces of his retinue and was not comforted. It was true then. They too considered Rashid to be the most cowardly of traitors, betraying his liege, his nation and his god.
What could he do? If he called off the fight, it would have the same effect as if Rashid had been defeated. Which action, then, would seem the least dishonorable? It was beyond him.
He had worked himself into an agony of indecision when a voice at his side said suavely: “My lord, you made a mistake in sending so callow a youth against that powerful Frankish knight, especially when the kingdom and honor of Afric are at risk.”
Disgusted and angry that his emotions and thoughts could be so easily read, Agramant turned to see who offered such an impetuous and gratuitous—not to say dangerous—criticism. He found himself looking up at an evil-faced knight, clad entirely in black armor that was glistening with freshly-applied oil. The figure was powerfully proportioned and towered over the king as it sat on a monstrous ebony war-horse, as big as a war memorial, looking down at the monarch with a dark, scowling, contemptuous expression.
“Rodomont!” Agramant gasped.
“If you allow this duel to continue,” the black knight sneered, “the result will be disastrous. Forbid it! Stop it now! Break the truce! Invalidate your oath! What’s a promise to a Christian dog? Less than nothing! Don’t hesitate—I’ll take the responsibility. Let any censure fall on my shoulders.”
The big knight turned to face the vast army that massed behind him and raised his voice as he raised his sword in a mailed fist. Already his first words to Agramant were being repeated among the men.
“Every one of you! Show the Christians how your swords cut! With me at your head to inspire you, each one of you’ll be equal to a hundred! We’ll wipe the Christian plague from Frankland like a sponge wiping clean a disfigured slate!”
At first there was only a disquieted, uneasy murmur among the men, then an increasing roar, like the approach of a great wave about to break over a beach.
Agramant, his indecision swept away by this tide of martial emotion, by the confidence inspired in him by a knight he had once valued over a thousand others, even above Rashid, spurred his horse. It leaped across that inviolate boundary and onto the field. Behind him, ten thousand lances lowered and forty thousand hooves began to pound the earth.
* * * * *
For five nights after Bradamant’s collapse, Marfisa refused to leave her side. After her fit, Bradamant had lapsed into unconsciousness and a raging fever. Her sleep was obviously no sweet release for she appeared to be racked by horrible nightmares, screaming hoarsely and tearing at her bedclothes and flesh until her friend had to bind her wrists with strips of cloth and even then Bradamant would arch her back until she was balanced only by her heels and the back of her head—Marfisa feared that her spine would snap.
Finally, at her wit’s end, Marfisa called for physicians—always the most desperate of resorts. Hearing of Bradamant’s illness, Charlemagne himself came with his personal doctors. He was shocked and dismayed to see the pale, wasted creature that writhed on its sweat-soaked cot like a suffocating eel—and even more distraught to realize that it was his decision to hold the duel that had been the cause of the girl’s agony. He begged his medicos to save the warrioress and they knew full well that the emperor’s order included an unspoken sentence of death should they fail. Marfisa was more direct, not wishing to leave any doubts about the matter, and told the men she would flay them alive with her own teeth if Bradamant died while under their care. They saw no reason whatsoever to disbelieve her.
For two days they toiled, rotating in shifts so the girl would be constantly attended. It was difficult administering medicines to someone not only unconscious but afflicted with violent convulsions, someone who was also possessed of a strength that even in her weakened state was prodigious, but they did finally succeed in sedating her so that, while still tortured by nightmares, Bradamant rested more easily. They were not as successful in treating her fever, which still raged like a brushfire, consuming more of her every hour. Marfisa became convinced that she would soon find nothing remaining of her friend but a handful of fine grey ash.
At a loss as to what there was left for her to do, she thought there could be little harm in praying to her new-found god. She knew that the Christian god was not fundamentally different than the Allah she had abandoned—so what difference did it make by what name she called Him? However, there was this entirely new god the Christians had made of one of Allah’s prophets. There was even a third god, an ill-defined entity called the Holy Djinn or some such, which she suspected had been invented for the sole purpose of bringing the number up to a magically significant trinity. These unscientific barbarians seemed obsessed with numerology (and they called her a barbarian!). She did not know how the priests reconciled this multiplicity of gods with their avowed monotheism. When she asked them the reply left her more confused than ever—as did all matters religious in any case. She concluded that God or Allah would be there by whatever name men decided to call Him and in however many parts He chose to divide Himself. He was independent of man’s petty debates; arguments and logic did not determine His shape or existence. Therefore she hung from one of the tent poles the small ivory and silver cross that had been given to her by Archbishop Turpin himself, knelt before it, genuflected clumsily and self-consciously, and prayed for the soul and body of her tormented friend.
As she murmured the unfamiliar words, she stared at the little crucified figure, glowing in a stray sunbeam like a tiny ingot of white-hot iron, and wondered not for the first time about a religion whose symbol was an instrument of torture, whose god would commit filicide; indeed, a religion that would worship a god one third of whom was mortal and could be killed. Christ was supposed to have been King of the Jews, she thought, but what was that to brag of? She’d been to the Holy Land and had not been terribly im
pressed—a miserable country of impoverished goat and sheep herders. Look at me, she thought, orphaned at birth, sold as a slave and yet by my own effort I possess a rich kingdom—seven rich kingdoms! And I didn’t need the help of any god to do this—I did it with the strength of my own will and my own two hands. If people stand in awe of me, it’s because of who I am and what I’ve done, not for the god that stands behind me.
She stared again at the emaciated manikin. Bradamant is starting to look like that poor tortured man, she thought sadly: crucified by love. Well, some things’re more painful than nails. Her great nostrils flared as she snorted with contempt: For all of that, there’ll be no one worshiping her seven hundred years from now.
As her mind wandered, she found her gaze returning heliotrope-like to the incandescent figurine. Her mind—never particularly imaginative—began to wander aimlessly, like a horse that has slipped its tether. For the first time in two decades, she thought about the brief years she had spent with the sorcerer Atalante. She remembered that he had been a gentle man, long before his love for his adopted children had driven him half mad—or completely mad if he had been half mad for each of their sakes. Of the two infants, she had at first been the sicklier and had required the most attention. There were periods of profound illness, where an emaciated child lay so near death that only the expert eyes of the sorcerer could discern the life that still remained. She remembered how he prepared strange potions and elixirs—her weirdly heightened memory made her mouth pucker with a hyperrealistic recollection of the awful tastes. Her wandering mind’s eye focussed, fixing itself on the skillful hands of Atalante as he prepared the herbs, chemicals and other ingredients of his medications. She watched carefully as they were ground, powdered, sifted, stirred, liquified, boiled, mixed and cooked. She listened to the words muttered while he worked—though these proved less magical than mnemotic: he had evidently committed the recipes to memory by rote. What sounded like an incantation was merely the list of ingredients chanted monotonously. Marfisa watched as the still-warm potions were carefully spooned into the mouth of the nearly lifeless infant. She watched as color flowed back into the chalky blue face, fever broke, rasping cough turned into soft, regular breathing and coma into gentle sleep.
“Why,” she said to herself, “I could do that!”
Although she had to threaten Charlemagne’s doctors with disembowelment, this proved enough to persuade them to provide her with just those herbs and other elements she had committed to memory after seeing them in her waking dream. She recited the words she had heard Atalante mutter. They meant little to her, but the doctors recognized them and provided them—ungraciously—to the grim-faced Saracen. She did to the ingredients what she had seen the sorcerer do and spooned the resultant liquids over Bradamant’s slack lips.
Marfisa sat back on her long haunches and watched her friend’s face expectantly.
“I’ve just had the most peculiar dream,” said Bradamant, sitting up and rubbing her forehead.
“Bradamant!” cried Marfisa.
“God in heaven! I feel so dizzy . . .”
“I shouldn’t wonder—you haven’t eaten anything in nearly a week.”
“A week? I’ve been sick that long?”
“Sick? Everyone thought you were dying. In fact, I think the doctors had actually given you up for dead. They were just too terrified to admit it. Probably with good reason.”
“What’s all that noise?”
“The duel—it’s started.”
“No! Not already! There won’t be time!”
“Time? Time for what?”
“Help me up—I must get dressed.”
“You’re not strong enough!”
“Of course I’m strong enough! Help me or I’ll do it myself!”
Marfisa shrugged her magnificent shoulders and did as she was asked. After all, she hadn’t cured her friend so she could lie about in bed.
“You don’t look half as bad as I thought you would.”
“Thanks. I’m feeling better, stronger, every minute. Where are my clothes?”
Bradamant’s self-description was accurate, Marfisa observed with amazement. Her skin was losing its blue-white pallor as a warm glow suffused it, like a sunrise glowing through a colorless curtain. Her body seemed to be growing tauter and her ribs were subtly vanishing beneath smooth muscle. I may be in the wrong business, thought the Moor. I should go into medicine.
Dressed and armored, Bradamant led Marfisa through the door of the tent and into the excited crowd beyond.
“What’s going on?” she asked the first person she saw.
“It’s Rodomont! Agramant is letting Rodomont take Rashid’s place!”
“What? Let me see!” She pushed her way through the mob, until she reached the fringe of the battlefield. On the far side, she saw the black knight and horse beside the pagan king.
“He can’t do this!” said Marfisa, elbowing her way to Bradamant’s side. “It’ll invalidate the treaty. More than that, Rashid’s oath will require him to be the enemy of Agramant if the king is the first to violate the field.”
Bradamant was only half listening so the full import of Marfisa’s words did not immediately mean anything: that this act of treachery meant that Rashid would be obligated to fight at her side, not as her enemy. Instead, her eyes were fixed on the two figures in the middle of the lists. One bore the familiar arms of the House of Montauban, her own, the other the silver eagle of Rashid. Both had abandoned the duel, their weapons hanging loosely by their sides, waiting to see what was going to happen. If Agramant broke the agreement, then Rashid and Renaud would no longer be enemies. Rashid’s oath would bind him to Karl.
“That’s not Rodomont,” said Bradamant in a peculiar voice.
“Yes, it is,” replied Marfisa. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s not Rodomont, I tell you. It’s Melissa.”
“Who?”
“God help us! They’re charging!”
As the Saracen army lowered its lances and surged forward, the crowd surrounding the two warrioresses broke in confusion and panic. Fortunately both women were armored, which gave some authority to their elbows, fists and knees. Nevertheless, it still took several long minutes before they were able to procure their weapons—Bradamant her lance and Marfisa her long, curved sword—and mount their horses. Bradamant shouted at the crowd to make way for them; she beat at the people with the butt of her lance, careful to do little more damage than cracking skulls and breaking collarbones. Now she could see that the two armies had met on the field and was as anxious to join the fight as a hound would be, sighting its prey but restrained by its master, whining and barking, tugging at its leash in whimpering frustration. Just so was Bradamant.
Finally breaking through, the women leaped into the battle with ululating cries of joy. Bradamant drove her lance through the chest of the first African she met, its bloody point protruding three feet beyond the man’s shoulder blades. Beside her, Marfisa sent four armored heads flying like footballs. The two swept through the Saracen ranks like a force of nature, like a tempest of iron.
When the spring grass is new in the Apennines, two fresh rivers cascade down from the high ridges, two tempestuous floods uprooting boulders and trees, washing away farms and vinyards, scouring rich soil and meadows to the lifeless bedrock, competing to see which could cause the greatest damage—this was how Bradamant and Marfisa, each working independently, devastated their common enemy.
The Saracen king, Bradamant could see, was beginning to have difficulty in rallying his troops. More and more of his men were abandoning the field—at least those who were still capable of running—leaving their sovereign all but alone in the middle of the battle. Marsilius had fled into the city, as had King Sobrino, Agramant’s most trusted advisor. She could see no sign of whom she was convinced—for no good reason she could now divine—was a false Rodomont.
On the other hand, she recognized the splendid arms of her fellow paladins, t
he great knights of Charlemagne. Alongside them fought equally valiant knights from Frankish Italia, Allemain, Westphalia, Austria and the Anglo-Saxon kingdom. They looked like jeweled boats scattered among the billowing sea of Arab robes and burnooses.
Suddenly seeing a way clear to Agramant, Bradamant spurred Rabican and galloped forward. The king, seeing the warrioress rushing toward him like a fiery comet, goaded his own horse and fled for the gates of Arles. In hot pursuit, Bradamant flogged Rabican brutally, her every desire in the world focussed on slaying the Moor who had one too many times deprived her of Rashid. This was, in truth, unfair, but there it was. Marfisa, understanding Bradamant’s intent, thought she saw a way to cut off Agramant’s retreat and spurred her own mount, leaping over a mound of bodies piled almost as high as the animal’s shoulders.
Neither woman was in time, however, to prevent the king from reaching his refuge and closing the gates safely behind him. Bradamant stabbed the point of her lance into the earth in disgust, while Rabican, sensing her frustration, stamped his heavy feet and snorted sympathetically. Marfisa drew up alongside her, uttering a snarling phrase that Bradamant did not need to understand to recognize as an obscenity. For once she recklessly wished she knew something equally blasphemous.
As they cursed their ill luck, milling in nervous circles like a pair of hunting-leopards denied their prey, vexed and ashamed, oil and torches were thrown from the top of the wall and soon the bridges spanning the river were ablaze. There was no entry remaining into the city on three sides and no escape other than by sea. Seeing their quarry lost, Bradamant and Marfisa plunged into the flood of fugitives who were vainly trying to follow their cowardly leader. Those who were not hacked to pieces by the two women poured over the bank of the river until its crimson waters were clogged like a ghastly stew with drowned bodies and one could almost walk to the base of the stone walls on their backs. Others tried to swim to where the fleet was already making sail and were lost in the pounding surf.