Chapter 28: Chapter 28: I will never be champion until I beat Adhemar!

William eyed the prizes in the hosting earl’s hands with a defeated look on his face. It was almost as though he was angry at being given a prize, so terrible was his countenance, that one would have supposed he lost at the tournament rather than win at two difficult events.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the tournament host, a man with the shape of a giant potato. “I present to you, winner of swordfight on foot, and winner of the mounted jousting, Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein, champion of the tournament!”

 

William stepped up and took the prizes of gold from the host. He waved a bit at the cheering crowd and clapping supporters, but his smile disappeared the minute he got off the podium and once again he had that look of unfulfillment on his visage.

 

“Here,” said William, throwing the prizes at Roland. “Melt it. Sell it. Do whatever you want with it.”

 

“Yes, your majesty,” Roland said with a mocking bow.

 

“You are champion, William,” said Wat, “why do you look as though you’ve just had sour grapes?”

 

“I am not champion,” William retorted.

 

“Excuse me,” said Roland, “the prizes in my hands beg to differ.”

 

“Yes,” said Wat, “the Earl said you were champion of the tournament. And everyone agrees with him.”

 

William stopped at this. He put his hands on his waist and turned around with tight lips.

 

“I will never be champion until I beat Count Adhemar!” he shouted at them.

 

“Since when did beating Count Adhemar become the standard for deciding who is champion and who is not?”

 

“Since he smashed his lance into my face and nearly threw me off my horse,” said William, breathing heavily. “Since he looked me in the eye and said “you have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting” since that time has beating Count Adhemar become my standard for championship.”

 

““You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting?”” Wat said, screwing his face as though he was being spoon-fed lime. “What does that even mean?”

 

“Listen to me, William,” said Roland, half sprinting to catch up. “Count Adhemar probably wants to beat you as much as you want to beat him. I don’t think he’ll miss the chance deliberately. You’ll definitely meet him in the next tournament or something, eh?”

 

William didn’t answer this. Instead, he threw his hands up in frustration. He saw lady Jocelyn get down from her place in the stands with her handmaiden following behind but showed no whatsoever of seeing her at all.

 

“Sir Ulrich,” she called in a sweet voice. The fact that the voice was calm and sweet alone made him angry. How could he be feeling this much anger and she’d the nerves to even be calm at all?

 

“Sir Ulrich?” she called again. This time, William knew he had no option but to answer her. He slowed down in his tracks, and turned around, twitching his nose furiously.

 

He moved so they walked side by side, with the wooden divide that kept the crowds on the sides of the stand between them. William could sense his current speed was causing her to half sprint in order to catch up with him, but he cared not in that moment. All he wanted was the chance to throw Count Adhemar off his horse with the end of his lance.

 

“What will you be wearing tonight?” she asked, smiling as she did. Christiana was standing a short distance away with Roland and the rest, all of them stealing glances at lady Jocelyn and William.

 

“Nothing,” William answered without stopping or sparing her a glance.

 

“Nothing?” said the fair lady. “Well then, we will cause a sensation, for I’ll dress to match.”

 

William stopped and faced her at last, and the scowl on his face was a terrible sight to behold. “Don’t you ever get tired of putting on clothes?” he asked.

 

Lady Jocelyn winced painfully. She looked down a minute, and then raised her head again with shivering, red eyes.

 

“A flower is only as good as its petals, no?” she said.

 

“A flower is good for nothing,” William replied, his hair tussling in the soft evening breeze.

 

“Really?” said Jocelyn.

 

“You cannot eat a flower and a flower doesn’t keep you warm –”

 

“And a rose has never knocked a man off the horse either,” Jocelyn said in a calm, and yet intense manner.

 

William clenched his fist in frustration and clamped either sides of his temple. “You’re just a silly girl, aren’t you?”

 

He immediately saw members of his company glance his way at his last words, each wearing a horrified expression with paled faces. But they looked away when they saw him staring, pretending too hard not to have heard his last words.

 

Lady Jocelyn put her hands together and stared down at them, when she looked up, there was a steely hardness in her once soft stare.

 

“Better a silly girl with a flower than a silly boy with a horse and a stick,” she said, taking one step away from him before retreating. Her handmaid joined her and they both made their way back to her stands.

 

William didn’t understand how he felt; it was as though frustration and anger had decided to pay him a visit all at once. And sure enough when he stared his company’s way, they were staring at him blatantly. He shrugged and turned away from them before they could preach his wrongdoings to him.

 

Life went on, and they moved onto Bressia for the next tournament which wasn’t due to start until a month and a half. It was William’s idea that they left on the morn of the next day, and as it was unlikely William would attend the ball to keep them in town, the men acquiesced.

 

None of them mentioned lady Jocelyn, when any of them had a matter to say that related to her, they would all take their leave surreptitiously and gather to talk in secret. Although, this arrangement had piqued his interest so much that one time, he followed without their knowledge and eavesdropped from a distance.

 

“She must have loved him so,” said Kate, Ralph’s wife. “She was even willing to dress to match when he had no clothes.”

 

“Yes,” said Geoffrey Chaucer, “And did you see the pain in her eyes as he said those words? Oh, truly I write words better than most, but I have never seen so much hurt in one woman’s eyes.”

 

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“Do you think he will apologize?” asked Wat.

 

No one gave an answer to that.

 

Ralph cleared his throat. “If he loses her, I don’t think he will ever find someone like her again. Some stars cannot be changed, you see?”

 

William’s ears burned from the words he heard. He had heard enough. He turned away and crept back to his tent in the same stealthy manner he first came.

 

The next morning at Bressia, William woke up rather early and wore a smile with which he greeted everyone with. They did return his greeting, but not before regarding him with suspicious eyes.

 

“What?” said William when Wat narrowed his eyes at him. “A man can’t greet you with smiles on his face?”

 

“No, he can’t,” Wat retorted. “Not when he has been as grim as tuberculosis for a week!”

 

That seemed to settle the debate. They had breakfast for the seventh morning in a row, and though Roland and Wat wouldn’t discuss this because Ralph and his wife, Kate, were present. They couldn’t help feeling emotional that morning. It was Wat who first burst into tears with a chicken wing stuck in his mouth.

Ralph and Kate wore worry on their faces, but could never figure out why the red-haired lad was crying.

 

“I just remembered my mother,” said Wat, wiping tears with the back of a chicken-free hand. “She used to make chicken like this every morning.”

 

Roland coughed and sniffed.

 

“What? You also remember your mother?” asked Ralph, when he noticed.

 

“No,” Roland replied, tearing meat off chicken bones. “It is my father that I remember.”

 

William resumed training like never before. It was almost as though he was learning to joust for the first time in his life. He worked hard at it, day and night, in cold rains and hot suns. He would drag logs of wood up hills, lift weights, raced against other horses. He trained hard with the zeal of a soldier preparing for one last duel against a fearsome enemy.

 

Every morning he would leave camp before the sky grayed for dawn and return at night in sweat and grime and all the exhaustion the human body could possibly contain.

 

The time for the tournament came again and William registered for the sword on foot and mounted joust events. His heart was set on one sole purpose; beat the champion, and become champion. It was not until then that he’d be able to focus on winning lady Jocelyn’s heart back.

 

The first man William faced in the list rode a brown steed and was at least twice William’s bulk. While his companions feared this might prove too much a test, William was eager to have it done and over with.

 

He snatched the lance from Wat and kicked his horse into a run at his enemy. Both men crashed their lances at each other and William returned, barely hanging from his horse.

 

“He is too strong,” he replied, groaning.

 

“Of course, he is too strong,” Roland snapped at him. “But he is also slow and throws his blows too early to make up for time. That gives you time to evade his strike. Allow him strike before you do, that way, you can evade his blows.”

 

William bobbed his head and turned around with a new lance. The flag went down and he kicked his horse into a solid run. Roland was on mark with his analysis, William noticed his opponent threw his blow early, but much slower than other knights he’s faced, and when he figured out which side was getting attacked, he dropped his shoulder about the area and the blow glanced off him. William’s lance crashed into the opponent’s shoulder, scoring a point for himself.

 

In the last tilt, William swayed to the left to fool his opponent into attacking that side, when the man took the bait, he straightened and threw his punch into the knight’s visor. The large man fell off his horse and landed in the sandy floor with a thud.

 

“Yes!” Wat yelled, punching up into the air.

 

At about the same moment, Geoffrey was seen running towards them from the distance.

 

“Where is that fellow always going?” asked Wat, with a befuddled expression on his face.

 

“I have word,” said Geoffrey, quite out of breath.

 

“What word?” said William.

 

“Count Adhemar has been summoned back to the Free Companies by the King of Messers. He will be gone for long, maybe the whole season. And as it is war, chances are, he might never return. You’re champion now!”

 

“First lady Jocelyn, and now count Adhemar,” said Wat, oblivious to the ripple effects his words would instigate.

 

William swelled like a komodo dragon about to spit venom. The veins of his neck and temples stood out like ropes under his skin. He glared at Roland with smoldering eyes before blessing Geoffrey with the same wicked glare.

 

“Well done,” Ralph said to Wat.

 

“Yeah, well done,” Geoffrey added, with a sharp edge to his voice.

 

William threw his helmet on the floor, let out a frustrated yell, and strode off

 

They ate in silence that night, with no man daring to say a word to the other. Even in those time when all they had to eat was an apple, they were still a bunch of happier folks than they appeared to be at that moment.

 

Every now and then, Geoffrey would try to draw William out of his retreat, but it was as futile as knocking on a snail shell to beg for salt. Not even the bickering between Wat and Geoffrey was enough to inspire William. He was like a galleon in the middle of a breathless sea, with wet sails flapping lazily in the nonexistent wind.

 

At the sword fights and mounted joust, many men would groan in blatant displeasure when they saw it was Sir Ulrich they had to duel or tilt against. Three times did they sell horses back to their owners after Sir Ulrich threw them off the horse with his lance.

 

In the days that followed the tournaments at Bressia, Wat, William, Roland, Geoffrey, Ralph and his wife, Kate, all traveled across the country to other tournaments. And William hoped, with all his heart that he would cross paths with count Adhemar during one of these outings. But never did he meet the count with curly hair and jet-black armor. Anger was all he felt at first and the knights who faced him paid dearly for it but that anger slowly began to fade as time progressed. Then, solitude began to creep into his soul.

 

Author’s note: Hey everyone, thanks for reading another chapter of “A knight’s tale.” Please leave a comment to let me know what you guys think and also a review would be greatly appreciated.

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