The Nonexistent Knight Read Online Free PDF Page B

couldn’t understand? One might find oneself swallowing it and being dishonored for life. So interpreters took part in this phase of the battle, light-armed men swiftly mounted on fast horses which swivelled around catching insults on the wing and translating them there and then into the language of destination.
    “Khar as-Sus!”
    “Worms’ excrement!”
    “ Mushrik! Sozo! Mozo! Enclavao! Marrano! Hijo de puta! Zabdkan! Merde! ”
    These interpreters, by tacit agreement on both sides, were not to be killed. Anyway they galloped swiftly away and if it wasn’t easy in that confusion to kill a heavy warrior mounted on a charger which could scarcely move for its encrustation of armor, imagine how difficult it was with these grasshoppers. But war is war, as the saying goes, and every now and again one did catch it. Anyway, even with the excuse of knowing how to say “Son of a whore” in a couple of languages, they had to expect some risk. On a battlefield anyone with a quick hand can get good results, particularly at the right moment, before the hordes of infantry swarm over and mess up all they touch.
    Infantry, being short little men, pick things up best, but knights from up on their saddles are apt to stun them with the flats of their swords and haul up the best loot for themselves. “Loot” does not mean things tom off the backs of the dead, as it takes special concentration to strip a corpse, but all that gets dropped. Since knights go into battle loaded with supplementary harness, at the first clash a mess of disparate objects falls to the ground. After that no one can think of fighting, can he? The struggle now is to gather everything up. In the evening on returning to camp the men bargain and traffic in the loot On the whole nearly always the same things pass from camp to camp and regiment to regiment in the same camp; what is war, after all, but this passing of more and more dented objects from hand to hand?
    Raimbaut found all that happened quite different from what he had been told. On he rushed, lance forward, in tense expectation of the meeting between the two ranks. Meet they did but all seemed calculated for each knight to pass through the space between two enemies without his even grazing another.
    For a time the two ranks continued to rush on, each in its own direction, each turning its back to the other. Then they turned and tried to come to grips, but by now impetus was lost. Who could ever find the Argalif in the middle of all that? Raimbaut found himself clashing shields with a man hard as dried fish. Neither of the two seemed to have any intention of giving way to the other. They pushed against their shields, while the horses stuck their hooves in the ground.
    The Moor, who had a face pale as putty, spoke.
    “Interpreter!” yelled Raimbaut “What’s he saying?”
    Up trotted one of those lazybones. “He's saying you must give way to him!”
    “Oh, not by my throat.”
    The interpreter translated; the other replied.
    “He says he’s got to go on and get a certain job done, or the battle won’t work out according to plan...”
    “I’ll let him pass if he tells me where I can find Isohar the Argalif!”
    The Moor waved towards a hillock and shouted. The interpreter said, “Over there on that rise to the left!” Raimbaut turned and galloped off.
    The Argalif, draped in green, was staring at the horizon.
    “Interpreter!”
    “Here I am.”
    “Tell him I’m son of the Marquis Roussillon, come to avenge my father.”
    The interpreter translated. The Argalif raised a hand with fingers clenched.
    “Who’s he?”
    “Who’s my father? That’s your last insult!” Raimbaut bared his sword. The Argalif imitated him. He was a good swordsman. Raimbaut was already hard pressed when up came the Moor with the putty face, panting hard and shouting something.
    “Stop, sir!” translated the interpreter hurriedly. “I’m so sorry, I got confused. The Argalif Isohar is on the hillock to the