Frankowski, Leo Conrad 2 The High Tech Knight

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military duty."
"But Lady Maria is made of tougher stuff. She's hired a champion to defend her,
and now the cousin is doubtless regretting his earlier greed. He has no choice but
to go through with it, and he hasn't a chance of winning. Rumor has it that he has
bribed the champion, Sir Boleslaw, to go easy on him, though the truth of that
isn't for me to say."
"So the outcome is preordained and probably fixed. No wonder it hasn't drawn
much of a crowd," I said. "I've heard that it's possible to get a fighting lesson or
two from a champion. How do I go about doing that?"
"You talk to one of his squires, my lord. They're the ones over there in the gray-
and-brown livery, good heraldic colors in Poland, though they aren't used in
western Europe. You'll have to pay six or twelve pence for the privilege of a
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lesson, of course. By definition, a professional is one who does it for money."
I took his advice, talked to the squire, and found that the price was twelve pence
the lesson. Twelve pence was two weeks pay for a workingman, but a bargain if I
could learn something that might save my life. The lesson was to be held right
after the combat. Certainly the squire had no doubts about whether his master
would be in shape to teach after fighting.
At high noon or thereabouts, a trumpeter played something to get everyone's
attention, a priest said a prayer, and the challenger and champion waited with
their helmets off before the crowd. The champion was a quiet man in his thirties.
The challenger was much younger, with a smile and flashing eyes. He had very
smooth and regular features, was handsome almost to the point of being
effeminate, and someone told me that his nickname was Pretty Johnnie.
A herald read two proclamations, one from each party in the dispute, which said
what they were fighting about. Some peasants had set up benches, and I paid for
a seat right on the fifty-yard line, with Anna watching over my shoulder.
Two armored men charged each other from opposite ends of the field, the
champion somberly dressed in gray and brown. The challenger was more gaily
clad in yellow and blue, his family colors.
As they met, the champion raised his heavy lance, and at first I thought he meant
to give the first round to his opponent. Pretty Johnnie's lance slid off the
champion's shield, and Sir Boleslaw brought his lance straight down, like a club,
on the helmet of the challenger passing by.
I could hear the bonk from the sidelines.
The crowd gave a polite round of applause as the challenger slumped in his
saddle and then fell from his horse. The champion waved to the crowd to
acknowledge the cheer, then dismounted to see if the challenger would get up.
He did, so the champion unsheathed his sword and walked over to him. He
politely waited a few minutes until the challenger stopped staggering, then said,
"Defend yourself!"
The challenger tried to do that, but made a poor showing. After a few swipes that
the champion contemptuously brushed aside, the champion gave him a
backhanded blow that caved in the front of his barrel-style helmet. He fell in a
heap.
The champion took off his own helmet, raised his sword, and proclaimed that
God had upheld the right, and that henceforth Lady Maria's right and title of her
lands would go unquestioned. He then bowed and returned to his tent.
Several people came out to tend the unfortunate challenger and found that they
could not remove his helmet. It was bashed in so badly that they had to pick the
man up and carry him over to the blacksmith's anvil. Getting that helmet off
attracted more interest than the fight itself had, and a crowd gathered to watch
the smith go at it with crowbars and hammers. Somebody shouted that they
should heat the helmet in the forge to make it easier to bend, and everybody but
the challenger laughed.
When they finally got his headgear off, the challenger's face was a red ruin. His
nose was smashed flat and all of his front teeth were knocked out. Medieval
dentistry being nonexistent, he was maimed for life. Pretty Johnnie wasn't pretty
anymore.
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