"No, cheat."
He turned his back to the stands, taking a position so that Hubert couldn't see what he was doing. He removed an arrow from the quiver that was colored differently from all the others. He fitted the black arrow to his bow.
"A little something the ordnance boys whipped up for me, just in case," he said to Finn.
"What's the gimmick?"
"Look inside the quiver and you'll find a little black box. When I nock my arrow, the bowstring depresses the arming trigger. The moment I let fly, you hit the button on that box. Inside the shaft, there's integrated microcircuitry coupling a ferrous metal detector inside the bronze arrowhead with a limited trim system on the fletching."
Finn grinned widely. "Now that's style," he said.
"I don't know about style," said Bobby, "but I've got a strong sense of self-preservation. The black arrows have shaped charges in the heads. Just stand between me and Hubert while I remove that, I don't want to blow up my target."
The whispered conversation with Finn was taken for hesitation on Bobby's part by Hubert, who began to grin broadly and act as though he had already won. Indeed, he had no reason to believe otherwise. When Bobby took his stance and drew his bow back, the crowd fell utterly silent. No one believed that there was any way the tinker could match the shot, much less beat it, but they respected his determination.
"He'll never best that shot of Hubert's," John said confidently. "I'll teach that Saxon cur a lesson in manners yet."
Bobby made a show of aiming, then let the arrow fly. The moment the shaft left the bowstring, Finn depressed the button activating the guidance system. The arrow was halfway to the target when the ferrous metal detector picked up the presence of Hubert's iron arrowhead just ahead of it. Fortunately, there were no other iron objects near enough to confuse the system and the arrow flew straight and true, the fletching adjusting itself imperceptibly until Bobby's arrow hit the end of Hubert's shaft precisely, splitting it right down the middle until it came up against Hubert's arrowhead with a shock that sent it halfway through the butt. There was a moment of complete, unbelieving silence and then the crowd roared.
Hubert's jaw dropped in astonishment. He could have sworn that the tinker's aim was off.
"By God, the man's a devil, not an archer!" John swore in amazement, forgetting his annoyance wi
th the tinker. "Any man who can shoot like that, I'll have in my service!"
He would have made the offer, only a mob charged out upon the field to congratulate one of their own, thrilling in a Saxon's victory over a Norman. When the tumult died down and the crowd dispersed, the black garbed tinker and his friend in lincoln green had disappeared. They did not show up to claim their prize. Vexed, John pronounced the man a craven coward and said that he hoped his Norman knights would make a better showing than his pathetic archers. Hubert left the field, looking miserable.
John flourished his truncheon and ordered the jousting to commence.
* * * *
The Saxon boy was quite impressed with the tinker's performance. He could not contain his joy. Lucas thought that Bobby had showed off just a bit too much. It had been risky. Obviously, the last arrow had been a guided one. Lucas conceded that Bobby had no choice, since the Norman archer's shot would have been impossible to beat any other way, but still, he hadn't liked it very much. Fortunately, Bobby had been able to retrieve the arrow and melt away into the crowd. That, at least, had been prudent of him.
The guided arrows were equipped with a fail-safe mechanism that would fry the circuitry inside the shaft if anyone was curious enough to examine them too closely, but he was still glad that Bobby had managed to get his arrow back and disappear. It had been an impossible shot. John might have decided to order him to duplicate it just to see if it was luck or skill. If it happened again, it would have been clear evidence of skill—superhuman skill. It was well to draw attention to themselves in order to curry sympathy with the locals and to flush out the renegade ref, but there was such a thing as carrying it a bit too far.
Now, his turn was coming up. Lucas decided to wait as long as possible to see how the competition shaped up. His nysteel armor would keep him fairly safe, but he could still be unhorsed and the whole idea was not to let that happen. He had no intention of risking a broken neck.
As the heralds announced the rules for the passage at arms, he sized up the other knights, watching as they were lifted up onto their horses. The rules were fairly simple. A challenger would ride through the lists to the opposing side and use his lance to touch the shield of the knight he wished to joust with. If he touched the shield with the butt end of the lance, then it was polite competition, lance points tipped with wood. It was still possible to be hurt, but at least the chances of getting skewered were somewhat diminished. However, if someone touched the shield of the knight he was challenging with the tip of his lance, then it was serious business. That meant either that he was bloodthirsty or that he had some personal grievance against the knight whom he was challenging, since then the joust would be carried out with untipped lances, like fencing with the buttons off the foils. For obvious reasons, most knights were polite to each other at tournaments. And for equally obvious reasons, the crowd simply loved it when shields were touched with tips of lances.
The first challenger rode out, heading toward the Norman side. The boy identified him for Lucas, engrossed in his role of play-by-play announcer and hamming it up to the hilt. Lucas wasn't paying very close attention. He wasn't interested in the challengers. They were not the ones he would have to fight. It was the home team he was watching.
The knight had crossed over to the Norman side and was slowly walking his horse past the pavillions, outside which the shields hung on upright poles. He hesitated at Front-de-Boeuf's shield, then smacked it with the butt end of his lance. He then returned to his side and waited until Front-de-Boeuf took his position. The fanfare sounded and both knights set spurs to their horses and thundered toward each other from opposite sides of the field. They entered the lists and dropped their lances into position.
Lucas noticed that Front-de-Boeuf dropped his lance fairly early, telegraphing his aim. They came together with a clash and clatter and Front-de-Boeuf nailed his challenger so hard upon his shield, directly in its center, that the knight was unhorsed immediately. Front-de-Boeuf took a hit himself, but he was built like the figure on his shield and although he swayed in his saddle slightly, he kept his seat. Home team 1, Visitors 0.
Two men at arms ran out carrying a wooden litter, but the challenger waved them off. He made an attempt to get up on his own, couldn't manage the weight of his armor and had to be assisted to his feet. He stumbled about like a drunk for a moment or two, then allowed the men at arms to lead him off the field, supporting him. He was given some appreciative applause.
The next challenger out touched the shield belonging to De Bracy. Lucas decided that this one, the mercenary, would bear close scrutiny. Men did not hire themselves out as mercenaries unless they damn well knew what they were doing. De Bracy rode out briskly to meet his challenger. There was a tension in his bearing, not a nervousness, but a tension of anticipation. A man who liked to brawl.
He stared across at his challenger, nodded to him, the other man returned the gesture and then they both dropped their visors and took a running start. Lucas saw that De Bracy waited until the last possible moment to position his lance properly and he held his shield just a bit high, for which he soon saw the reason. As the two knights came together, De Bracy gave his upper body a slight twist in toward his opponent, using his shield to mask the movement. He really needn't have bothered with the subtle ploy. His challenger had decided to try for a head shot, the most difficult target. He missed completely and De Bracy tumbled him to the ground easily. The crowd gave him a cheer and Lucas noticed that once again Cedric's section refrained from applauding.
Next came the Templar, Bois-Guilbert. The fighting priest. It always fascinated Lucas how many men of religion were able to preach Christ's doctrine and then go out and bathe in blood on His account, such as the warrior pope, Julian. Believe in peace and love or else I'll kill you, Lucas thought. It was an old refrain. To get a closer look at Bois-Guilbert, Lucas pretended to put on his helmet in order to check the fittings. He lowered the visor over his eyes and dialed in some magnification.
The Templar was good looking in a dark and swarthy sort of way and he had the meanest eyes Lucas had ever seen. He would have given Attila a run for his money in the "if looks could kill" department. Then Priest noticed something funny about his lance.
The wood that covered the tip had a faint, hairline crack in it. And a tiny portion of the lance's tip showed through. The moment that contact was made the wood would neatly splinter and the point of the lance would be driven home. It would all look like an accident.
The trumpets sounded, both knights spurred and galloped at each other. Bois-Guilbert's horse was a heavy, muscular charger that had a definite advantage of height over most of the other mounts. He would be forcing his opponents to strike up, thereby placing them at a bit of a disadvantage. Also, his shield with the skull-toting raven on it was oversized and heavy. Nothing wrong with that, but it showed that this was a man who gave himself every possible advantage. Not that Lucas could fault him for that, with Bobby's trick arrows and his own nysteel armor.