“Sire, I do not know how I can apologize enough. I beg your forgiveness.”

Smiling, Louis shook his head. “As my good mother might have said, it was the fever talking. I mentioned it only in jest, but I should not have embarrassed you. It is you who must forgive me.”

What a strange man. Roland felt himself becoming more and more intrigued. He may have been trying to joke, but he actually blushed at repeating my coarse words. Yet he has led knights in battle.

“Sire, for me to forgive you would be an impertinence. I owe you my life.”

“I saw what was happening in the melee, and I did the only thing I could, Sire Orlando,” said Louis. “Besides, I could not let such a man as you be lost. I saw you knock down one knight after another. I saw you hold off a dozen or more professional tourneyers. Jerusalem needs men like you to fight for her.”

Roland felt cold despite the high sun. His heart was being pulled in two directions. He wanted to give this man, to whom he owed his life, anything he asked. Yet this was the same king whose armies had pillaged Languedoc.

Roland had worn the crusaders’ cross as a disguise to rescue Diane. But to wear it in earnest?

He looked off into the forest and saw a figure prowling through the trees. Sunlight glinted on a steel helmet. Off in another direction, he glimpsed the blue tunic of a royal sergeant behind some scarlet-tinted shrubbery. The forest was full of the King’s guards, he realized, keeping far enough away to give Louis some privacy. The sight of the guards sent a little tingle of fear down Roland’s spine, reminding him that this man sitting companionably beside him wielded enormous power.

This is the king who unleashed the inquisitors on my poor people. In his name Amalric burned hundreds at Mont Segur.

If only I could tell him flatly, no, I will never go on crusade with him. But I dare not.

“Sire, with this arm of mine, I probably will never be able to fight again.” He raised his right hand from his lap, and a lightning bolt of pain shot from neck to fingertips. He winced and let the hand drop again.

Louis’s face shadowed. “Your suffering is my fault. I let Amalric persuade me to allow maces in the melee. I know as a Christian I should forgive Amalric. But he does not feel any remorse. Those few hours of public shame only hardened his heart. And to think I was considering him for one of the highest offices in the realm!”

Was! Roland’s heart leaped. That at least I accomplished. Amalric will not be Constable of France. That much I have done for the martyrs of Mont Segur.

But what of Nicolette? Amalric must be furious. What if he took it out on her? If only I could ask about her. But that would compromise her even more.

“Well, sire,” he said, “if the tournament changed your mind about the Count de Gobignon, it may have been a good thing, saving you from placing such great trust in the man.”

“A shrewd point,” Louis said with a small smile. “Yet I cannot afford to lose Amalric. He is strong, a good general in the field. You should have seen him riding down the English at Taillebourg. And I need his army, the vassals of the house of Gobignon. And his treasure.”

It dazzled Roland to realize the position he was in. Discussing Amalric with the King of France.

He looked up at the sky through the brown leaves of the great oak. God, it is good to be alive.

“Sire, it is no help,” he said carefully, “to have a man on your side whom you cannot fully trust.”

“Oh, he will be all right,” said Louis confidently. “I told him to stay away from Paris for six months, till my anger cools. By then his feelings toward me will have improved, too. His family has served mine for hundreds of years.”

Perhaps they’ve resented it for hundreds of years, too, Roland thought.

Did Amalric take Nicolette with him when he left Paris? I must get a message to her.

“I need you as well, Orlando,” said the King. “Let us suppose you are lucky and God gives you back the use of your arm. Will you come on the crusade then?”

How can I escape this king? Beneath his gentle manner, what an iron stubbornness!

Roland tried to imagine himself using his right arm again. It hurt even to think of moving that crushed shoulder. I will never be well enough to go on crusade. But I will not make him any promises, not even empty ones.

“Sire, a crusading knight needs a string of horses, arms and armor for war, a following of men-at-arms. I have none of that. I am so light of purse, I could not even pay my own passage to Outremer, much less for a whole retinue.”

“A crusading knight need only be a great fighter,” said Louis quietly. “Without that, all the rest is worthless. You can fight. I saw that. And do not forget, you won arms and horses in the tournament. Also, as your jongleur tells me, you have a little house outside Paris. You must have a bit of income.”

“My father sends me a little money. I have nothing of my own.

A hollow feeling in Roland’s stomach warned him that he was stepping close to the edge of a cliff. If the King asked who his father was, he would either have to lie — or reveal that his family were enemies of the French.

But then, the truth might be the very thing. If Louis knew I was a faidit and the son of one, surely he would not want me with him.

The hollow of dread grew till it became piercing physical pain. He wondered if he could trust himself to take such a risk with the King.

If I tell him, he might have me beaten, turn me over to the inquisition.

No, he is not that sort of person.

“Sire, I must confess all and throw myself on your mercy.” He felt like a rider who had come to a dangerous jump and made up his mind to try it.

God, what has happened to my shoulder? How can I still be awake? I would rather be dead than feel so much pain.

Then in the midst of his suffering his heart lurched with dread. The King’s companion. What on Earth?… My life is my own, not his.

Yet, were it not for him I would be dead now.

Saint Michel, what if he wants to take me crusading?

Ah, well, if I live I won’t be able to do any fighting anyway. If I live. In his pain Roland hardly felt the hands that lifted him, as his consciousness slipped away.

XI

The sparkling October day awed Roland, as if he had never before seen sun, blue sky, and trees. Out for the first time since the tournament, he was walking with Perrin in the garden of the royal country estate at Vincennes. His feet felt uncertain on the dirt path. Leaning on Perrin’s arm, he made an effort to walk upright despite the weight of the wooden frame and the bandages Louis’s physicians had wrapped around his right shoulder. After weeks of lying in bed wearing nothing but a nightshirt, he felt his clothing rough against his skin. But the bearskin cloak over his back was a welcome protection from the autumn chill. The light of the morning sun poured strength into his limbs.

“Good day, Sire Orlando.”

Roland recognized the voice and turned. The King had come up behind him.

Roland tried to get down on one knee, but Louis stopped him with a wave of his hand. Roland looked for some token of kingship on Louis’s apparel, but the sovereign wore only a mantle of black silk trimmed with red squirrel fur, such as any country gentleman might possess, and his head was bare.

He knows what he is. He does not have to proclaim it.

Saint Michel, can this really be happening to me? Roland wondered. A moment ago, walking with Perrin, he had felt that this royal garden and this beautiful day were as real as the continuously throbbing pain in his shoulder. But now, staring at the tall, large-eyed man before him, he asked himself if this could be yet another one of the feverish dreams he had been having since the tournament. Louis had appeared often in those dreams, along with Nicolette, Amalric, and a great mace always descending but never striking. Can I actually be a houseguest of the King of France?

“Dear Sire Orlando, I heard you were up and about. Praise God, your health is coming back. Come walk with me, and we shall enjoy the fall colors in the forest together.”

“Sire,” said Perrin nervously, “he tires quickly.”

“Nonsense, Perrin,” said Roland testily.

“I shall prop him up, if I have to, my good fellow,” said Louis. “You have been watching over him day and night for a month. Be off and have a cup of wine with my equerries. Let me care for your master for a while.”

Walking slowly beside Louis, Roland realized with surprise that the King had no attendants. There were just the two of them strolling through the manor garden. Roland looked back and saw Perrin in the doorway of the two-story stone mansion, looking anxiously after them. Lifting his left arm, the one he could move, Roland waved him away irritably.

“I like to walk alone, or with just one companion,” said Louis. “I never get enough solitude. That is why I enjoy Vincennes.”

Roland inhaled deeply. The air felt sweet as water from a spring.

Louis cheerfully pointed out some especially brilliant splashes of gold and red in the foliage around them.

“When did you bring me here, sire?”

“About two weeks after the tournament, when the friars said you were well enough to travel. I thought being away from the dirt and noise of Paris would speed your recovery.” His face fell. “But then it seemed I might have made a terrible mistake. We took you in a litter, and the ride was bumpy. You got much worse for a while. My queen was very angry with me.”

And Nicolette? If only I could ask about Nicolette, Roland thought anxiously. Where is she? And how does she fare? Will Marguerite let her know I am better?

They were following a path to a clearing, where Louis showed him a huge, twisted oak.

“That is my favorite tree in all this forest. I like to sit under it. Sometimes the people who live nearby come to me here with their troubles, and I try to help them. “

Louis took Roland’s left arm and helped him seat himself under the old tree.

Embarrassment made Roland’s face burn. The King helps me to sit down?

Slowly he leaned back until his weight was resting against the tree trunk. The ache in his shoulder subsided a little.

Louis folded his long body down beside Roland. “Now, Sire Orlando,” he said with a wry smile. “If I can urge the matter of your taking a crusader’s cross, without being answered in the language of a Parisian guttersnipe…”

The crusade? Uneasiness made Roland want to draw away.

“I do not understand, sire — about the language, I mean.”

Louis smiled, but his fair cheeks reddened. “While you were very ill, just after we got here, I laid a crucifix on your chest and told you how God had saved my life after I promised to go on crusade. I suggested that He might spare you if you made the same promise. You… you…” Louis hesitated, then looked away. He rattled out the rest of the tale in a voice so low Roland had to strain to hear it. “You threw the crucifix on the floor and told me to stuff my crusade up my arse.”

Roland stifled an impulse to laugh. This was no laughing matter. He went cold with mortification — and with dread. Any suspicion that he was irreligious might provoke an investigation. And that could lead to Diane.

Saint Michel, was I that sick? No wonder Perrin was afraid to let me be alone with the King. Dear God, I hope I did not let anything slip about Nicolette.

“Sire, I do not know how I can apologize enough. I beg your forgiveness.”

Smiling, Louis shook his head. “As my good mother might have said, it was the fever talking. I mentioned it only in jest, but I should not have embarrassed you. It is you who must forgive me.”

What a strange man. Roland felt himself becoming more and more intrigued. He may have been trying to joke, but he actually blushed at repeating my coarse words. Yet he has led knights in battle.

From somewhere a figure struck Amalric’s legs. Roland heard the shout, “Stop! He is fallen!” and glimpsed Perrin, unarmed and unarmored, at Amalric’s feet.

Then the mace smashed down on his shoulder. Agony shot through him. He felt bones shattering.

His shoulder was crushed. He collapsed. The pain, sweet Jesus! The pain in his shoulder filled his whole body. He could barely cling to consciousness.

Lying on his back in the dirt, he saw Enguerrand de Coucy send Perrin flying with a blow of his red-striped shield.

Amalric raised his mace again, gripping it with both mailed hands.

For the third time the trumpets shrieked for a halt.

A man was standing protectively over Roland. Amalric shifted the mace to bring it down on the bare, blond head of this newcomer. Roland heard cries of horror from the spectators. Amazingly, Enguerrand de Coucy threw himself between the two men, his arms up to deflect the mace.

Roland turned his head. Through a haze that drained all color from his vision, he recognized the King.

Louis drew his longsword and put the point of it against Amalric’s chest. He thrust with it, pushing Amalric back from Roland.

Roland propped himself up with his left arm. The right one was useless. All feeling was gone, from shoulder to fingertips. He was able to see over the top of the lists. On the other side a line of royal sergeants stood with crossbows loaded and drawn, aimed at Amalric.

“You have used me, Count, used me ill,” said Louis in a low voice that carried in the sudden silence that had fallen in the arena.

Amalric lifted off his tilting helm. He was standing beyond Roland’s feet, and Roland got a good look at his face. It was flushed and full of hate as he stared at Louis.

“Forgive me for menacing you, sire,” he ground out. “I was possessed by my angry mood and did not see that it was you who barred me from my enemy.”

“Possessed indeed,” Louis replied. “If you had struck me it would have been an accident. But what you were doing to this man was no accident.”

“It is my right to defend my honor as I see fit, sire.”

“How dare you speak of honor, you who persuaded me to hold this tournament so that you could use it to cloak murder? You have made a fool of the King and a mockery of chivalry. You will be stripped of your armor and will stand until vespers on yonder platform, like any other recreant knight.”

“I am the Count de Gobignon. I am a Peer of the Realm. You cannot treat me like some ordinary knight.”

Another figure moved into Roland’s line of sight. Roland saw through the wavering film over his eyes that it was Enguerrand de Coucy.

“Sire, if you do this to de Gobignon, you insult all of us of noble birth.” His face was as red as the stripes on his shield.

“God’s justice is the same for everybody, highborn or lowborn,” said Louis. “For the crime of attempted murder I could punish the Count much more severely if I chose.”

“I should have let him brain you,” Enguerrand de Coucy muttered.

Roland heard Robert d’Artois’s voice cut in suddenly. “Silence, de Coucy!” he snapped. “How dare you speak so to the King?”

Waves of pain rippled out through Roland’s body from his shoulder, cresting and ebbing in time to the rhythm of his heart. With each beat, it seemed sight and hearing faded momentarily and then came back. This felt worse than any other wound he had ever suffered. In a lucid moment he thought, I may never use this arm again.

He heard the King say, “Amalric, will you take your punishment like an obedient knight, or must I have you bound?”

I must try to witness this, Roland thought. With a supreme effort he fought the pain and raised his head a little higher. He managed to see Louis and Amalric staring at each other. Both men were golden blond, the King’s hair falling fine and straight from his receding hairline, Amalric’s thick like a lion’s mane. The King was slender, Amalric broad and powerful. Trembling with anger, the King seemed ready to seize Amalric himself, while Amalric’s chest heaved with suppressed fury.

At last, in a cold, controlled voice, Amalric said, “I will submit, perforce. You do me a great wrong, sire, and not me alone. You undermine the very foundations of this realm. In exposing me to public scorn, you tell the men of rank that they cannot rely on you. In the end, it will not be I who am shamed by this day.” Amalric turned and strode out of Roland’s sight.

Perrin’s dirt-streaked face, a rivulet of blood running from nose to lip, appeared before him. Gently lifting Roland’s head, he unlaced the tilting helm and pulled it off. Roland gasped as a new wave of agony shot through him. Anxiously Perrin peered at him.

“Do I still have the scarf?” Roland whispered.

“Yes, master.”

Louis dropped to one knee beside Roland. “How fare you, Sire Orlando?”

Through clenched teeth Roland gasped, “I live. Thanks to you, sire.”

Louis smiled and laid his hand on Roland’s forehead. “Be it God’s will that you be healed, to fight again as magnificently as you fought today.”

At Louis’s touch the terrible pain that throbbed through Roland’s body seemed to diminish. It is said anointed kings have power to heal, Roland thought with awe.

“M-may I have help to get him to his tent, sire?” Perrin choked out, his voice tremulous.

It is not every day, Roland thought, that a jongleur speaks to a king.

“He shall be in my care,” said Louis. “My own physicians shall tend him. Orlando of Perugia, I must have a man like you as my companion in arms.” He stood up and beckoned to the royal equerries. “Take him to the palace.” He turned to the heralds, standing in a small group nearby. “This tournament is now at an end. Let it be proclaimed.” Then he passed from Roland’s sight. He heard a cheer for the King go up from the spectators. They do not yet know he has cut short the fighting, Roland thought.

God, what has happened to my shoulder? How can I still be awake? I would rather be dead than feel so much pain.

Then in the midst of his suffering his heart lurched with dread. The King’s companion. What on Earth?… My life is my own, not his.

Yet, were it not for him I would be dead now.

Saint Michel, what if he wants to take me crusading?

Ah, well, if I live I won’t be able to do any fighting anyway. If I live. In his pain Roland hardly felt the hands that lifted him, as his consciousness slipped away.

Roland charged with the second rank.

Almost at once four lances from his own side converged on him. The suddenness of it stunned him. He had expected to be attacked, but not so soon and not so openly.

He brought Alezan up short, and with rein and spur made the horse wheel while he swung his lance in an arc that struck aside the weapons of his enemies and knocked two of them from the saddle.

But Roland was in the center of a solid circle of mounted men, all like himself wearing black strips of silk on their helmets.

Now that Amalric has seen me joust, he has decided he needs help. Who the Devil are these bastards? he thought angrily.

Some of the men pressing him wore nondescript helms and carried plain shields. Others were elaborately, expensively arrayed, doubtless in captured accoutrements. On the edge of the ring he saw the silver wolf’s head, also with a black ribbon tied to it. Among the shields facing him was one painted with the red and white bands of de Coucy.

There were no longer any questions. It was simple now. They were trying to kill him, and there was only one thing to do — strike down as many of his attackers as possible.

And if Amalric joined the attack, surely Nicolette’s command did not mean that he must die rather than defend himself.

Three lances stabbed at him from the right. One slid past him, but two struck him hard in the side under his lance arm, knocking the wind out of him. He managed to club one of the attackers with his own lance, bringing him down, but he felt himself losing balance and toppling out of the saddle.

He hit the ground on his feet and drew his blunt-edged tournament sword. He chopped at the lances jabbing him from above and slashed at the hooves of the war-horses trying to trample him.

“Beauseant!” The deep-voiced shout lifted above the din of battle was the war cry of the Templars. Guido Bruchesi was riding through Amalric’s men, cutting a path with his longsword. He wore the white silk ribbon of the happy. The professional tourneyers Amalric had recruited to help him fell away from Guido. Roland’s heart leaped thankfully.

Then Enguerrand de Coucy engaged Guido. The tide of battle swept between Guido and Roland, and he was once again fighting for his life, alone.

Riders wearing white silk, followers of Robert d’Artois, were attacking Amalric’s hirelings. Among the attackers Roland glimpsed the shield of the English knight whose arms he had returned. The professional tourneyers ignored the knights who were supposedly their opponents and continued to strike at Roland.

Roland heard cries of “Foul play!” from the stands as the crowd began to see that something was amiss.

Beyond the steel ring closing in on him, Roland could see Robert d’Artois riding against Amalric. Amalric was armed with a mace. He swung it at Robert’s shield, and the King’s brother fell and disappeared from Roland’s view.

The fighting had driven Roland and his attackers to the edge of the field. Roland knew that he could touch the wooden barrier and thereby be allowed to leave the field in safety. But he was sure that Amalric’s men would never let him escape that way. He was close enough to the spectators to hear their shouts of encouragement for him and their angry protests at his enemies.

Feeling that the crowd was with him gave him fresh strength as he hammered furiously at his attackers, driving them back inch by inch.

He took a stunning blow on his helmet, where it covered the back of his neck. He blacked out momentarily, and when he could see again he was lying full-length on his back. From all sides the heavy blades hammered at his body, not sharp enough to cut through his mail, but hard enough to break his bones.

Only half conscious, he sat up, despite the merciless shower of sword strokes.

A momentary break in the ring of enemies around him gave him a glimpse of the gallery. He looked for Nicolette — this might be his last sight of her — but saw only King Louis on his feet, gesturing and pushing his way down the gallery steps. Then the dust and the forest of mailed legs closed in again.

The outcry of the crowd, shouting at Roland’s assailants to spare the fallen knight, drowned the clangor of arms.

Above the screaming of the crowd rose a clarion blast. Roland heard the heralds calling for a stop to the melee. Am I saved?

Amalric roared, “Fight on! Fight on! Kill him!”

As Roland struggled to get up he saw heralds riding in among Amalric’s men, trying to drive them back. The trumpets and clarions shrilled again, in vain.

A pair of steel-encased legs appeared before him. He lifted his head, and there, in the small oblong of sight permitted by his tilting helm, was Amalric, towering above him, mace upraised.

The thick staff, topped with its spiked iron ball, was coming down on Roland’s head. Desperately he tried to twist out of the way, knowing there was not time.

From somewhere a figure struck Amalric’s legs. Roland heard the shout, “Stop! He is fallen!” and glimpsed Perrin, unarmed and unarmored, at Amalric’s feet.

Then the mace smashed down on his shoulder. Agony shot through him. He felt bones shattering.

His shoulder was crushed. He collapsed. The pain, sweet Jesus! The pain in his shoulder filled his whole body. He could barely cling to consciousness.

But Diane shivered slightly and lowered her eyes. A deep scarlet flush appeared on her cheeks. Quickly she finished tying the bandage.

Roland stood up and moved away from her.

“Have you not had enough, Orlando?” Guido asked. “I admit you are much better at jousting than I expected you to be. But in the lists Amalric is still your master. You did your best to kill him, and it was not enough.”

Roland felt himself growing angry all over again, and his slashed back stung.

“No, I have not done my best. Not yet.”

Guido grunted skeptically. “I have just taken a stroll past the Count’s pavilion. He has a dozen knights gathered around him. They are professional tourneyers, the sort who go from tournament to tournament all over Christendom and live on their winnings. They know a good many more foul tricks than you do, my friend. And Amalric was talking with Enguerrand de Coucy, who bears you a grudge. We Templars hold it honorable to retreat when the odds are more than three to one.”

All true, Roland thought, but there was something Guido had not taken into account. He picked up the blue and gold scarf, where it lay on the dark brown oak lid of the chest, and pressed it against his heart. A man fighting for himself can be beaten. A man fighting for Love is invincible.

“You are a monk,” he said to Guido. “You know very little about Love. You do not know how powerful it makes me feel.”

“It is you who know less than you think,” said Guido. “I will help you all I can, Orlando, but before this day is out you may need my prayers more than my sword.”

Immediately after Guido left, Perrin came in holding a folded paper. “A lady named Agnes gave me this for you, Messire.” It was unsigned, but Roland recognized Nicolette’s cursive script:

As you have called me mi dons, I charge you that you make no further attempt on the life of him who has injured you. If you succeed, my children lose their father, and the vengeance of his family will not let you live long. If you fail, I lose you, the one most precious to me in all the world. Either way, you condemn me to a lifetime of anguish. Therefore, I command you, hold your hand. In the name of Love.

As the meaning of the note sank in, all the strength and confidence Roland had felt only a moment ago drained out of him. Groping for support, he sat down on his arms chest, holding the paper so loosely it slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the carpeted floor of the tent.

He felt as if iron hobble-gyves had fastened themselves to his ankles. A moment ago he was going to win. And now?

I must obey, he thought. I have sworn by Love to serve her in all things, and if I disobey her now my life is a lie.

Still, she did not forbid me to fight in the melee.

Maybe I shall see a way to obey her command and yet take some revenge on Amalric.

But what way?

“What is it, Roland?” Diane asked him anxiously.

“Nothing. Nothing.” He picked up the paper and tore it into tiny fragments.

“Perrin, help me to arm myself. “

Roland felt a chill around his heart. Perhaps he should simply ride away from this field. To risk his life in this melee was foolhardy.

But if he left, he would appear a coward. There would be no vengeance for Perrin. And Amalric still would pursue him.

He held out his right arm so that Perrin could once again tie the scarf around it. When it was in place he lifted his arm and pressed his lips to the smooth silk.

His mind empty of any plan, his hands tied by a torn letter, Roland joined the knights gathering before he gallery in the center of the arena. The marshals had removed the tilting barrier that had divided the field in half.

The chief of heralds announced that the knights must form two companies, those happy in love and those disappointed in love. Roland smiled sourly beneath his helm. The usual tournament conceit, he thought, probably Queen Marguerite’s idea, a shallow borrowing from the traditions of l’amour courtois. The side we pick depends on who is leading it, not on how we stand with the ladies.

“A seigneur of highest rank will command each company,” the herald cried, his powerful, trained voice booming out over the tournament field. “Monseigneur the Count Robert d’Artois will lead the happy in love.”

The King’s nearest brother, thought Roland. The other side is likely to let his side win, out of politeness. I should probably join them.

“The disappointed in love,” the herald went on, “will be led by Monseigneur the Count Amalric de Gobignon.”

How ironic — and how true.

“De Gobignon unhappy in love?” laughed a Gascon knight near Roland. “But his countess is exquisite.”

“It must be some other lady, not the countess, who has disappointed him,” said another. “It is impossible for a man to be in love with his own wife.”

The Gascon answered, “I would never look at another woman if my wife were the fair Nicolette.”

Mindful of Nicolette’s command, Roland spurred Alezan over to a marshal and said, “I wish to fight on the same side as the Count de Gobignon.”

The marshal’s eyebrows flickered in surprise, but without comment he gave Roland a strip of black silk to tie to his tilting helm.

Dust clouds glowed in the bright sun, which had moved around to the west. The field enclosed by the lists was a confusion of chargers and armored men, of waving lances and fluttering black and white silk streamers on tilting helms.

Roland smiled to himself as he guided Alezan into the ranks behind Amalric and saw the blond count, his tilting helm thrown back, turn to glare at him, surprised and angry.

Amalric spoke to Enguerrand de Coucy and the other riders near him, pointing to Roland, and they all looked in his direction. A cold feeling spread through Roland’s chest.

He looked for friends, but he recognized no one among those near him, or in the company gathering at the far side of the field. Over there Robert d’Artois, riding a nervous white charger and holding a blue shield charged with three gold fleurs-de-lis, was marshaling his men.

“Form two ranks!” de Gobignon shouted.

Roland took a place in the center of the second rank. A silence settled over the tournament field.

The trumpets sounded.

Roland felt the ground shuddering under him as the knights in the rank in front of him shot forward. In an instant, all he could see in the center of the field was a whirlwind of dust, flying lance splinters, and the tumbling bodies of mail-clad men. The clash of arms and the roar of the crowd combined in a hellish din.

Now the dust settled enough so that Roland could see the combatants fighting at close quarters. He admired the expert way they guided their mounts. The gigantic chargers seemed to step with the grace and precision of dancers. Knights and destriers were like the centaurs of Greek legend, rider and horse moving as a single creature.

Roland charged with the second rank.

Almost at once four lances from his own side converged on him. The suddenness of it stunned him. He had expected to be attacked, but not so soon and not so openly.

He brought Alezan up short, and with rein and spur made the horse wheel while he swung his lance in an arc that struck aside the weapons of his enemies and knocked two of them from the saddle.