Grave Goods Read Online Free PDF

under an awning decked by flags. Another covered stand held the nonlegal rich and important. Lesser mortals, large numbers of them, braved the sun to line the spears that had been set in the middle of the field to mark off a sanded area, sixty feet square.
    It was a day out. There were little tents selling ale and sweetmeats. Jongleurs entertained the crowds with songs, legerdemain, and tumbling. Market women sold clothes-pegs and herbs. In the fields beyond, swallows flipped back and forth over the corn strips.
    The judges’ herald blew a fanfare before introducing the two combatants in a voice that traveled. “Under the eye of Almighty God, Master Peter of Nottingham representing Sir Gerald L’Havre, and Master Roetger of Essen representing Lord Philip, Baron Wolvercote, shall this day prove which holds the Manor of Tring, with all its appurtenances, by true right.”
    The trumpet brayed again. “Let the combatants come forth armed with
scutis
and
bacculis
, and swear to the justices that they have abjured all magic in this matter of trial, then let them fight until the God of Battles shall decide, or until the sun shall go down.”
    The two champions emerged from a small pavilion near the judicial stand, knelt before the judges’ bench, and spoke in unison.
    “Hear this, ye justices, that we have this day neither eaten, drunk, nor have upon our persons neither bone, stone, nor grass, nor any enchantment, sorcery, or witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abused or the law of the devil exalted. So help us, God and His saints.”
    Adelia was in the stands only because Emma had begged her to be; she’d rather have stayed behind at the inn with the children. She had no liking for fighting of any kind—it took too long to put people together again afterward, always supposing they were still alive to let her do it.
    The two men strode into the arena. Both carried a shield and a stave. Each wore sleeveless hauberks, leaving the head and legs bare, and each was shod with red sandals—a tradition, apparently—that made them look vaguely ridiculous, like children who’d dressed up as knights without the proper footwear.
    Adelia was relieved; staves were surely not as harmful as swords; less bloody, anyway. She said so to Emma.
    “In Germany it is the sword,” she was told, “but Roetger is a master with both—and the proper name is ‘quarterstaff,’ my dear, not ‘stave.’ ”
    Emma had become edgy; it didn’t seem as if the cheeseparing Sir Gerald had economized this time. His champion was an inch or two shorter and probably a little older than Roetger, but the muscles in his neck, arms, and legs were formidable. So was the sneer that showed confidence and dark yellow teeth.
    By contrast the German looked the slighter of the two, and his face was expressionless. Not a man of words, but on the journey Adelia had come to like him, mainly because both children did, always pestering him: “Master Roger, Master Roger.” He had endless patience with them, making whistles from hazel twigs, showing them how to hoot like an owl by puffing into their claspedhands, tearing little pieces out of a folded leaf so that, unfolded, it had a face.
    “Does he have children back in Germany?”
    “I haven’t asked,” Emma said, with more energy than the question demanded. “He is here to fight; that’s all I’m interested in.”
    There was another fanfare. Master Peter, representing the defendant, threw a mailed glove to the ground. Master Roetger, the prosecuting champion, picked it up.
    “Let battle commence and God defend the right.”
    The quarterstaffs were six feet long and made of oak. Each man grasped his in fighting mode, one hand clasping it in the middle, the other hand gripping it a quarter of the way down so that half the staff was free to do the belaboring.
    Except that there wasn’t any belaboring—not at first. There was a lot of jumping as one man tried to take the legs out from under the other,