IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (13)
IV. Chivalric Romance and the Bastards (13)
The reason Anselm had dragged this all the way to a trial by combat was simple.
By slandering Sir Herman's honor and Lady Kassel's chastity and taking them hostage, he meant to simultaneously throw off the accusations of heresy and of attempting to betray the city.
There was still no physical evidence for the charges against Anselm.
The Church had quite thorough and varied methods for rooting out heretics, but Anselm had raised the scandal with Lady Kassel to block them.
'I'm going to have to see blood.'
Keldric thought as he rolled his slightly stiff shoulders.
Every opponent Keldric had faced so far had been at least ten steps beneath him.
The mercenaries and light cavalry who had raided House Bellaf were like that, and even the mounted bandit gang, which had been his fiercest fight, had proven no match for Keldric.
The rock troll went without saying. Keldric put no great stock in having fought a brute beast with only strength and low intelligence.
If he had to review opponents right now, it would be the light cavalry in Carlton Village and the mounted bandits at Schaffendorf.
They had met Keldric with highly systematic and well-drilled maneuvers, but in the end they were not knights.
A fight between knights was not a simple duel.
Both men moved in heavy, sturdy armor, so it was less that attacks carried destructive force and more that both became so hard to hurt that they had to ceaselessly hammer at each other and block attacks.
In the end, if Keldric let his guard down, he would bleed just the same.
Still, Keldric had a measure of confidence.
The earlier mounted bandits and light cavalry were opponents who could not be placed on the same level as a knight, but the combat-honed prowess from those fights had set Keldric's blood simmering.
And all the more if this was a fight staked on his own profit and honor.
"Sir Keldric. Are you all right?"
"Ah, Sir Herman."
Sir Herman approached the fully armored Keldric, his expression a little tense.
He too wore armor over his entire body save for the helm. But it was not for fighting.
As was proper for a knight, it was customary to dress in knightly fashion for public, solemn, and important occasions.
Keldric gave Sir Herman's armor a quick glance, noting the plate pieces at various points.
It did not have as many plate sections as Sir Werner's transitional armor, but the breastplate and greaves of plate still looked quite sturdy.
Even that much was obviously expensive without having to examine it, so Keldric without regret pulled his surcoat over his own chain mail.
Across the deep blue surcoat, a dark oak-colored bear with a raised forepaw roared.
"Are you not nervous?"
"Nervous, my ass... Sir Herman, if a washerwoman picked up a club, would you be frightened of her?"
"N-no, I wouldn't."
"Neither am I."
"..."
Sir Herman nodded awkwardly.
Keldric was likely the only man who would treat Sir Johannes as a washerwoman.
"Sir Keldric. You must not take Sir Johannes too lightly."
"Have you seen Sir Johannes fight?"
"Twice, at tournaments. Though, truth be told, that was facing him directly..."
"How was he?"
"He used nimble and swift attacks. He favored shielding his opponent's vision with his shield and then winning the bout with a sudden thrust from behind it."
If Sir Herman's account was right, Sir Johannes seemed to wield an irregular swordsmanship using a shield and a short arming sword.
"That was three years ago as well. He may have changed by now, so take it only as reference."
"Thank you. That will be enough."
No matter how much his confidence had risen, grasping information on his opponent was essential.
In that respect Keldric could consider himself at an advantage.
Sir Johannes was called a veteran with eight tournament victories, but Keldric was a knight who had only just emerged from the backwoods.
His only reported deed was the rumor that he had killed a rock troll with his bare hands, so it was plain that Sir Johannes would find him hard to counter.
"It looks to be about time."
"R-right. We should go now."
Keldric lifted with one hand the longsword that an ordinary man would need two hands to grip and swing, and Sir Herman, taken aback, stammered as he nodded.
To the men of the North, a large frame was the symbol of martial power.
In that respect, Keldric was a warrior of the utmost reliability.
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The trial by combat was held in the open space in front of the castle stables, in the forecourt.
It was less an empty lot than a front yard enclosed by the fortress, but everything that needed clearing had already been removed and a simple fence erected.
Most of the stones that had been jutting out here and there had been picked out and carted away, a sign of considerable effort in the preparation.
Keldric walked out slowly, his helm tucked under his arm.
From the opposite side, he saw an armored knight likewise walking forward.
"That man is..."
"Sir Johannes of House Fyrnstern."
Sir Johannes's armor was similar to Keldric's.
He wore chain mail and a surcoat, and over them he had draped something like a cloak that covered his upper body down to nearly half his breastplate.
The device on his surcoat was a shield split in half: a cross emblazoned on the left and a black eagle on the right.
His armament was average, and there was little to criticize in his appearance either.
If Joseph had carried the base impression of a rat, Sir Johannes's face looked solid.
He looked as if he would use heavy attacks, and he did not, as Sir Herman had said, look like a man who favored light attacks.
However, Keldric had no intention of letting prejudices drawn from looks dull his blade.
If he faced someone, he would do so always with his fullest effort.
And this fight, especially, demanded his absolute best.
Just as with Keldric, the gaze Sir Johannes fixed on Keldric from the other side carried a probing air.
He swept a glance over Keldric in his armor, then looked at the longsword slung across Keldric's back and the mace at his waist and let out a scoffing laugh.
"...Is he mocking me?"
"That's, well."
Sir Herman, having seen it, could not finish his sentence.
Even in a sacred trial by combat, provoking one's opponent to gain the upper hand was quite common.
"Sir Keldric. Don't let yourself get too worked up. It's only a petty provocation."
"I'm perfectly fine."
So Keldric said, but he was aware that he was, in fact, slightly irritated.
No matter how excellent his self-control was for a knight, Keldric was still human. If someone acted up in front of him, he got angry.
"It's been a while since a trial by combat."
"The knights themselves are fighting—I wonder which of them will win."
"Whose victory will God ordain...?"
Meanwhile, the castle forecourt had drawn a crowd and was nothing short of bustling.
Quite a number of people had gathered to watch the trial by combat. Some servants and soldiers of the castle could be glimpsed as well, and it seemed every idle soul in Bellam had turned out.
"Silence, all of you! Let the two valiant and honorable knights step forward!"
The clamorous crowd was silenced all at once by the senior priest who stepped to the fore.
The stiff-backed old priest appeared to be a man of the Church.
Behind him stood several people in attire that practically announced, "I am a cleric."
The boisterous mood turned solemn in an instant, and Keldric and Sir Johannes each took their places before the old priest.
"These two valiant knights here have sworn to fight staking their honor and justice! Before we begin, let us pray that this sacred combat be fairly conducted according to the will of God!"
At the old priest's cry, everyone gathered in the forecourt began crossing themselves and entering prayer.
It was also a way of asserting the Church's authority.
When the assembled crowd all crossed themselves and displayed religious fervor, the Church naturally seized the moment to imprint religion upon the masses and piggyback on the occasion.
In this age, most trials by combat followed this pattern.
A dispute arose, and once a trial by combat was agreed, the Church, which delighted in such things, was the first to rush in and undertake the mediation.
Because a trial by combat carried the meaning that the outcome of the fight was the very decision of God, the Church merely had to piggyback on it to display its authority.
Seeing even Sir Johannes cross himself, Keldric likewise crossed himself and made a show of praying.
The old priest looked on with satisfaction, then continued.
"In days past, the claim was raised that Lady Kassel committed adultery with Guild Master Anselm of the Mormont Trading Company! If this be true, then the bond of marriage sealed by sacred contract has been defiled, and God shall surely pronounce judgment!"
Sir Herman's face crumpled. By contrast, Anselm, seated with his limbs bound, smiled basely.
"But at the same time, the opinion has been raised that Guild Master Anselm is a heretic and that he also sought to betray Yaven's rightful ruler, Lord Devanu Mikesh! To violate faith and, further, to believe in heresy is sin, and God shall pronounce judgment on this as well!"
Slightly stinging stares poured from the hushed assembly. The stares were directed at Anselm.
Believing in heresy was an object of great revulsion even to the common folk of the domain, who lived leaning on faith and superstition.
Now that the Church itself had stepped in, if he were revealed a heretic, it would be Anselm who was nicely roasted.
"Do the two honorable knights swear here and now that they will submit to the judgment God shall render and contend honorably with one another?"
"As God wills, I, Johannes of House Fyrnstern, swear that I shall not forsake knightly honor."
"God be my help, I, Keldric of House Bellaf, likewise swear that I shall take up the sword with honor and piety."
Sir Johannes and Keldric completed their oaths in the solemn atmosphere.
The old priest briefly closed his eyes in prayer, then spoke again.
"May God's blessing attend this sacred trial by combat, which exalts honor and reveals truth. The victor of this fight shall be he whom God has chosen in sincerity."
In the end it was God who presided over the trial by combat, so the outcome was God's choice.
That it was God's choice meant everything fell to the victor, and it also meant the loser was left with nothing worth a damn.
The same applied exactly to the current situation.
If Keldric won, Sir Herman's honor and Lady Kassel's chastity were guaranteed by God Himself and left no room for doubt, and Anselm's guilt was inevitable.
If Anselm's champion won, the opposite would hold; but Keldric was not of a temperament to purchase worry over wretched luck.
Keldric entered the fenced area like Sir Johannes and slowly donned his helm.
The tin-can shape of the great helm hid Keldric's fierce, deep-blue eyes.
His field of view narrowed at once, and his breath was trapped inside the helm, making the air feel stifling.
But Keldric looked only dead ahead.
Some fifteen paces away, Sir Johannes, wearing a bascinet-style helm, drew his weapon.
A broad shield and an arming sword poised over it.
Just as Sir Herman had said, he plainly meant to slowly eat away at his foe with nimble and dazzling swordsmanship.
"Before all assembled here, by the radiance of the just and righteous God and in the name of Lord Devanu Mikesh, Yaven's rightful ruler, I declare that this trial by combat shall be conducted fairly!"
The old priest's words, as though he had swallowed a locomotive boiler, came to an end.
And that very moment signaled that the two knights' bloody fight had begun.
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Anselm had a measure of confidence.
Sir Johannes was a knight with eight victories in the local tournaments, and the very fact that Baron Gofrit had assigned such a knight to him was proof that Anselm had not yet been discarded.
With a man of Baron Gofrit's stature standing firm as his backing, Anselm had nothing to fear.
'There is no variable.'
If he had to name one, Keldric's massive frame and spirit were most likely to become a variable.
But as far as Anselm, whose information network was thorough thanks to the peddlers, had heard, that huge young knight was a rootless knight still without any proper deeds of arms.
The only thing going around was a patently hard-to-believe, preposterous rumor that he had beaten a rock troll to death with his bare hands.
It had certainly been threatening when he stormed the trading house and smashed Anselm's limbs, but that was something any other knight, not only Keldric, could just as easily have done.
A veteran knight with a combined eight tournament victories against a green, rootless knight.
For a calculation-minded merchant, the only natural choice one time out of a hundred was the former.
And therefore, there was no variable. Anselm took that thought as a matter of course.
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Keldric set himself as he gazed at the opponent before him.
When it came to swordsmanship, Keldric had learned amply from Sir Volfen.
It was not the sort of hidden, secret teachings that a family might call its arcane tradition, but even so, the two-handed swordsmanship that Sir Volfen had personally refined through countless battlefields had no superfluity and was overpowering.
In a word, it suited Keldric well.
Keldric raised the longsword he gripped in both hands above his shoulder, turning his wrists left and right and shifting its orientation constantly.
No matter how much his confidence had risen, the opponent was a fellow knight.
Keldric did not have the slightest intention of underestimating him and suffering for being careless.
Inside his slightly stifling field of view, the first to move was Sir Johannes.
Sir Johannes, who had been stealthily measuring the distance while hiding his sword behind his shield, suddenly shot a large step forward and drove in a thrust.
Clang!
Keldric knocked it aside with his longsword and swiftly turned his wrists to attempt a counterstrike overhead.
But Sir Johannes was a step faster.
He seemed already to have assumed the first attack would come to nothing.
"Hup!"
The instant the flashing arming sword was deflected, Sir Johannes recovered it like flowing water and, with a battle cry, used his shield to knock Keldric's sword hard aside.
A dull thud resounded as the longsword struck the shield, and a few splinters of wood flew.
Keldric used the recoil to open distance quickly.
'Getting in close is dangerous.'
It was Keldric who would be in danger if he rashly closed the gap.
If he said screw it, closed in, and threw punches, Keldric would win, but even that he could not be certain of.
Sir Johannes was a man who had drilled endlessly in swordsmanship centered on thrusts with the arming sword.
The moment Keldric closed in to swing his fist, there was no guarantee that Sir Johannes would not thrust through the eye-slits of Keldric's helm.
No, he most certainly would.
To do that, Keldric had to find an opening in that veteran knight.
'I'll have to create an opening.'
And Keldric meant to create one, even if he had to force it.
"Khh."
Meanwhile, a low laugh sounded softly from Sir Johannes as he faced Keldric.
It was a provocative laugh, as if to say to Keldric, "Weaker than I thought, aren't you?"
But Keldric's swordsmanship was sufficiently threatening that no one could say he failed to live up to his size.
Sir Johannes was hoping the cold sweat on his hands would dry.
A feigned air of ease was discernible, but the fact that his shield hand still trembled was the proof.
Keldric set himself again.
Rather than swing the mace recklessly and have it blocked by the shield, he meant first to press on with the longsword techniques he trusted most.
This time it was Keldric who rushed in first.
Whoosh!
The heavy longsword split the air with a gruesome sound, surging at a speed uncharacteristic of its mass.
Seeing it, a startled Sir Johannes hastily angled his shield.
A steep slope would make the attack glance off smoothly.
The opponent swinging the heavy longsword would surely then lose his stance—and that was the move Sir Johannes was aiming for.
"Huh?"
But the longsword that he thought would strike the shield halted high in midair like a painting.
When the shield that ought instantly to have been struck hard remained quiet, Sir Johannes's eyes went wide as lamp saucers.
"What..."
The instant the dumbfounded Sir Johannes blinked, Keldric turned his wrist in a flash and brought the longsword crashing down from the opposite direction.
The spot was the weak flank not covered by the shield, where only the arming sword remained.
Sir Johannes, aghast, urgently angled his arming sword sideways, but Keldric's longsword drove straightforwardly on.
Crun-nch!
"Keug, hup?!"
The close-packed rings of steel scattered in all directions, and Sir Johannes sucked in a wasted breath.
The arming sword he had tried to block with had its cross guard smashed and was left wobbling.
Sir Johannes swiftly retreated two steps, but a fist was already flying into his now-defenseless solar plexus.
Blam!
"...?!"
His helm hid it, but Sir Johannes's face went deathly pale.
More chain mail rings scattered. Sir Johannes had to correct his stance as fast as he could.
But Keldric's attacks were both heavy and so quick they were hard to react to.
Blam! Bang!
His fist crashed in twice in succession.
All three punches together struck Sir Johannes squarely in the solar plexus.
The stroke of luck for Sir Johannes was that he was armored and had a body hardened by knightly training.
Had he been unarmored, he would already have collapsed, retching.
"Raaah—!"
Only after Sir Johannes struggled with desperate, do-or-die ferocity and swung his shield did Keldric take one step back.
Then, at once, the longsword came tearing in again. Sir Johannes, still not fully recovered, frantically raised his shield and blocked it.
As if rebounding away, Sir Johannes staggered back holding his shield and stared ahead with trembling eyes.
A low voice sounded from Keldric's helm.
"Nothing much."
Ten paces away, Keldric's breathing was still even.
That planted in Sir Johannes's heart the seed called fear.
Sir Johannes had not even regained his wits before Keldric began to move once more.
If Sir Johannes was a wolf that gnawed at his opponent slowly, Keldric was a bear.
If there was no opening, he would create one in a single stroke.
And Keldric preferred seizing openings and widening them with certainty.