Harun spent the following week watching from the embrasures of his tower room for passing knights. That his efforts proved unsuccessful was, however predictable it may have been, still infuriating. The week was past in a moment of empty horizons. On the eve of the battle, Harun had grown desperate enough to ask Wenzel whether he could not find himself a horse and armor. In return, he received a pitying look.

“Harun, I can’t fight for Karl, much as I’d like to. I ain’t a noble, much less a knight.”

“But you are a soldier! You know how to fight. If you put on a helmet with visor, nobody will know it is you. There is an old armor up in the tower stored with all the other weapons, we saw it when we hid up there. You could put it on and no one will ever know.”

“They’ll know all right. They’ll know the moment I get my ears hacked off. Harun, knights fight on horses, and when on the ground, they fight with swords. Never in my life have I even touched a sword, not to speak of knowing how to fight with one. If I have to fight, I fight with a spear or guisarme, which is totally different! No, forget it. Only a true knight could fight for Karl.”

“Then we are lost,” Harun summed everything up.

Harun went to the dining table that evening even less enthusiastically than usual. He could not see anything, a bowl of gruel most decidedly included, which would be likely to cheer him up in the near future. Therefore, he was mildly and pleasantly surprised to see the unexpected black figure of Bertram in the main hall. He was standing at Sir Christian's table, engaged in conversation with the nobleman.

Harun looked around. Nobody else was here yet, so the duty of rescue rested upon him. He advanced to his usual place to tear Bertram from the evangelical clutches of Sir Christian by whatever means necessary.

“…really think that I am not to blame, Father?” Sir Christian asked in a low, troubled voice.

“No, my son,” Bertram answered with the air of the professional father confessor. “If you were guilty of any sin, it would be that of presuming too much of God’s perfection for yourself. We, his children, are fallible always – it is how he made us, and thus error is not sin. Oversight is not wrongdoing.”

“Thank you Father! Thank you.”

“It was nothing, my son. I am glad to help where there is need.”

Harun wondered how long the recluse would yet be able to keep this up. However, it would be inhumane to wait and see out of mere curiosity. Therefore, he stepped up to them and bowed to Sir Christian.

“Milord…”

“Oh, Harun.” The knight gave him a weak smile. “Be welcome and sit down. You know Father Bertram, do you not?”

“Yes, I know …Father Bertram, yes.”

“We have been having a long talk.”

“I noticed.”

“He was wise and kind enough to guess how heavy this business of the killing and yet another death in our midst soon to come has been preying on my mind lately, and came to offer hearing my confession.”

Harun's jaw dropped. “He came to offer what?”

Bertram’s sharp eyes sparkled with laughter. “Why, yes. Do you find it so strange that a devout Christian should think of the spiritual troubles and needs of his fellow men?”

“Not that a devout Christian does, no.”

Bertram smirked. “Well there you have it.”

Harun stared suspiciously at the recluse, but he just continued smiling his hidden smile in silence.

“Shall we sit down then?” Sir Christian proposed, and drew back his chair. He hesitated, looking at Bertram. “Will you stay for supper, Father? It would be an honor to welcome you as a guest at my table.”

“Sadly, I must decline, Milord. I fear I have not yet completed my evening’s prayers. I um… have a whole chest of sins to deal with at supper time.”

“Then of course you must go. I would be the last to turn anyone from his spiritual duties. Another time perhaps.”

“If God grants it.” Bertram bowed.

“And your belly does.”

“What was that, Harun?”

“Nothing, Milord, nothing.”

“Farewell, Milord.”

Sir Christian nodded.

“Good bye, Father Bertram.”

“Yes, goodbye, Father Bertram,” Harun echoed, still eying the recluse suspiciously.

“Good bye, Harun.”

The Recluse strode away and vanished through the door. Harun was still puzzling over what interest anyone on earth could have in Sir Christian’s self-inflicted soul troubles when the food arrived. But the sight of the brown mush in the bowl drove everything else from his mind. Even death and destruction.

*~*~*~*~*

The morning of the fight dawned annoyingly bright and genial. Harun, for once in a lifetime not having been able to sleep, stood at the small gap in the stonework of his tower room which was his only window of the world, and watched the landscape of autumn trees blazing in the sunlight, but no knights, no knights, not a single solitary one.

Harun remained standing where he was. Admittedly it was a rather remote possibility, but if he did not move, did not go down to the great hall and then outside where the battle was going to be, it might not happen at all. Or at least he would not see it and perhaps not feel quite so ashamed about it. Yet he was not to be left in peace. Some time around noon, there was a knock at his door and Wenzel entered. Harun did not turn around.

“Sir Christian’s set the time for the trial to be at sundown this evening,” Wenzel’s voice came from the door. He spoke low, as if it cost him some strength to get the words out. Which it probably did.

“What does Karl intend to do?”

“Be there.”

“He’ll die.”

“I tried to dissuade him. I went to him and said he should run.”

“And?”

“He just looked at me and asked: ‘Where to?’ And the damn thing is, he’s right. Nobody’ll take in a fugitive from… from the justice of God.”

“Will they not?”

“No. And he’s got his family, and his brothers, too. He can't just leave.”

“I suppose they will be better off if he is dead, will they?”

“They will be taken care of.”

“How do you know?”

“Karl told me. He said he had a word with Henrik and Michal about it.”

“He talked with them about what would be if he would… but that means he is already sure that he will…”

Harun could not bring himself to finish the sentence. Wenzel understood anyhow.

“Well, let’s face it, his chances ain’t that good.”

“Anything else I ought to know about?”

“Aye. He asked me to thank you for all you did for him.”

“To thank…” The scribe felt his throat tightening. It felt like a noose being drawn around his neck.

“Yes. He says, without you, he would never have been able to find his brother’s killer and avenge him.”

“Avenge him? He’ll be killed tonight, by the very same man who ran through his brother!”

“Yes, but now everybody knows who it was, that is the more important thing.”

“Do you honestly think that?”

“I don’t know. Karl seems to.”

There was a pause.

“You’ll come, won’t you?” Wenzel asked finally.

“He probably expects me to, am I correct?”

“Aye, I think he does.”

“Yes, I will come. I will come.”

“Good. Come to the meadow behind the mill. Till this evening.”

*~*~*~*~*

The entire village had gathered behind in the light of the setting sun. Harun had wanted to delay his departure, on the basis of the argument that sunset was barely a precise moment, sunset was a process taking several hours, and one might as well leave in the middle as in the beginning. Or at the end perhaps? When the horizon was shimmering still with a faint trace of red, it was still technically sunset.

But if he started thinking like that, he told himself, he probably would not go at all. So he tugged himself away from his solitary post in the tower when the sun had barely begun to redden and wandered down and over the empty fields, through the deserted village, past the mill.

And there he was. And there they were. All the inhabitants of the village, in the middle, Sir Christian on a seat, and right in front of him, Karl and Radulf.

Radulf looked around as he heard the approaching footsteps. His face was lit by a smile as he saw Harun, and he nodded to the scribe. Harun felt his fists clench.

“Here I am,” Radulf declared, turning once more to his liege lord. “Here we all are, ready to see justice done. But where is Karl’s champion? I see none of noble blood here but myself.”

Sir Christian looked inquiringly at Karl.

The peasant licked his lips, and drew in a long breath. “My apologies, Milord. My fighter must have been detained somewhere on the way.”

Radulf’s lips twitched. “How unfortunate. For you, I mean.”

“There is no harm in waiting a while…” ventured Sir Christian.

“Milord, I have a right to the justice which is due to me! If the peasant Karl cannot find a knight to defend him, than both he and his cause are forfeit in the eyes of God and men alike! I demand justice!”

“Which, I assure you, we all pray you shall get,” Sir Christian answered in a cold voice. “Yet it is I, not you, who is the lord ruling here! I have set the time for the trial by combat to be at sundown. So unless Karl’s champion has failed to turn up when the sun is down, the matter remains undecided! We will wait as long as the sun sets.”

Radulf nodded shortly.

“As you wish, Milord.”

Harun spotted Wenzel somewhere in the crowd and went to him. Neither of them spoke a word. They all waited, with baited breath, and watched. Harun saw Karl close his eyes and put his hands together. In prayer?

The scribe looked down at his own hands. When had he last prayed? He could not really remember. Also he did not think it quite right to bother Allah just now, after years and years of silence. It was not very good taste not to speak to a fellow in years and then come barging in the door with a load of problems that would make any sensible man leap out through the window. And he did not have a carpet, did he?

The sun sank lower.

And lower.

It touched the horizon, and continued its course. Then it was all but gone.

Harun saw tears twinkle on a woman’s face in the crowd.

Sir Christian sighed, and opened his mouth.

Oh, to inferno with it! If it helped, why not try and pray? What could go wrong? As discretely as possible Harun tried to take up a posture akin to what he remembered of the prayers of his youth.

“Very well,” Sir Christian said in a voice belying the words. “If nobody will step forward to fight for this man, I have no choice but to…”

He halted.

Everybody else had heard it to. Hoofbeats. Then all eyes turned to where the path to came out of the eastern forest, and to the dark mounted figure there, approaching them. Harun stared at it too. Then he took his eyes off it and stared even more bewildered down at his hands. Prayers seemed to work quickly these days.

Karl started moving. Normally, he would not have dared approach a strange knight in such a way, but this was not normal. He nearly flung himself at the horse, grabbing its bridle in his fist.

“Sir Knight,” he gasped, “Sir Knight, hear me, I beg of you…”

“There is no need to beg,” came a rough, though certainly not unkind voice from within the helmet. “I have come here to fight for you.”

“You… you have?”

“Yes. Lead the way, my friend.”

“Sir Knight!” Karl bowed so deep his beard almost brushed the ground.

Harun felt dizzy. He closed his eyes.

“Al-hamdu li-llah,” he whispered. “Al-hamdu li-llah.”

As he opened his eyes again, however, and saw the approaching rider clearly for the first time, he wondered whether Allah deserved praise in this particular instance.

It was a knight, there was no doubt about that – but that was as far as there fortune went. The horse the knight was riding did not wear a saddle; even Harun’s untutored eye could see that it was a peasant’s beast not meant to be ridden. The armor of the knight had seemed black at first in the twilight, and indeed it probably once had been, but now its color could best be described as russet, and as originating from the substance. The brave fighter neither wore a sword, nor a shield, and his lance he had probably left at home.

So much for the efficacy of prayer. Thank you, Allah.

The scrap metal knight unmounted before Sir Christian and bowed to the Lord of Sevenport.

“Sir Christian, I have come here to take part in that honorable contest in which two noble men are set against each other to divine the will of God. Are you willing to accept me as a contestant?”

“A contestant? A contestant against me? This scarecrow?” Radulf was positively bursting with rage. “I demand that you send the insolent dolt on his way this instance!”

“At the moment,” Sir Christian replied coldly, “it is your demeanor, not his, that I would describe as not befitting a man of noble birth.” He turned to the new arrival. “Sir knight, I accept your offer.”

“This is outrageous! I will not stand for…”

Radulf was silenced by a gauntlet hitting him in the face. He staggered back and stared at the unmoving eyes behind the rusty metal helmet in disbelieve.

“I believe I am as good a judge as any on what is outrageous and what is not,” the knight said. “And murder is. Shall we?”

“You…” Radulf’s voice was hoarse. “You do not even have a sword!”

“If that is the only problem,” said Sir Christian, “it can be readily solved, my loyal liegeman.”

He unfastened a glinting new sword from his belt which was somewhat familiar to Harun.

“This sword was made for me by the good smith Henrik for use in bloody war. Now it has a chance to serve justice. A far better course, to which I give it gladly. Here, Sir knight. And while we are at it, a lance you will find leaning beside the mill. I have held one in readiness.”

“You are an example of generosity, Milord – and of foresight.”

“Let us say of hope, Sir Knight. Now, listen to me.” The lord drew himself up to his full, impressive height. “You will be fighting today before God and in his name. On you rest life and death. I and the Lord lay it upon you: fight well. May the trial begin!”

For a moment, nobody moved. Then, slowly, the two contestants receded from their positions, not losing sight of one another for a moment. Radulf went off some considerable way. First Harun thought that he was going to run for it, but then he noticed a small tent which had been erected in the shadow of the mill. The steward entered. When, some minutes later, he reappeared, Harun was finally confirmed in his suspicions. If he had still had any lingering doubt up to that moment about Radulf having killed Lukas to cover up his embezzlement, it disappeared. There was simply no way he could have acquired such an armor by honest means!

As if called for, the guards beside Sir Christian chose that moment to light torches they had brought with them. The red glow was reflected by the shimmering steel, and by the glossy black coat of the giant stallion Radulf was now leading forth from behind the tent. Harun’s eyes strayed to the grubby figure of the other contestant on his carthorse, which seemed to be rather in the mood for a nap than for a fight. He bit his tongue so as not to have to moan.

The fighters reached for their lances.

“Take up your positions,” Sir Christian commanded.

Radulf galloped to his side of the meadow. Then he waited for his contestant to get his horse moving. He had a helmet on, and the visor down, but nevertheless Harun was sure he was grinning.

Finally, both of them were in place.

“Ready?” The Lord of Sevenport inquired.

The short bowing of two helmeted heads answered him. Sir Christian raised his arm, held it in the air for a moment – then let it fall.

“Charge!”

They did. Only a few seconds of drumming hoofs and flying mud, then the two riders collided with an almighty crash.

And the scrap metal knight was hurled backwards, into the dirt.

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This is the penultimate chapter of 'Well Dead'! I'm almost a little sad to come to an end with this story, but I already have a great idea for my next historical fiction! :) :)

How was the chapter?

Cheers

Robert