He slowed Vaillantif to a walk as they passed the assembling knights of William le Clito. Warrin was among them, leaning against the piebald stallion whose price had never been paid, arms outspread upon withers and rump, looking for all the world like a blasphemous crucifix effigy. He was talking lazily to le Clito, but broke off what he was saying to stare at Adam with a contemptuous smile.

Le Clito spoke and Warrin ceased slouching and turned his back on Adam to check and hitch the piebald’s girth. Adam swung Vaillantif away and trotted him back to his own end of the field where his men were warming up.

Gradually, the opposing lines of knights began to assemble. Horses snapped at each other and were reined back hard, or sent round in a circle to attempt a place in the line again. Men jostled, struggling to position their shields and lances as well as control the reins. It was disorganised chaos out of which, after much bellowing, cursing and energetic waving of arms, Geoffrey finally succeeded in bringing about a reasonable battle formation.

There were several seconds of silent, strung tension: all down the line, men fretted their destriers for the charge. Adam tucked himself down behind his shield, rested the weight of his lance upon his thigh, and stared across the expanse of field at the opposing lines. The pied horse stood out boldly among the bays and browns and chestnuts, an easy target either to attack or avoid. He glanced briefly at Heulwen. Whereas all around her people were craning on tiptoe or bending sideways to obtain a better view of the proceedings, her stance was rigid. He wanted to shout a reassurance to her, but it was impossible, and in the same moment as his thought, the attack horn sounded along the line and all his attention was swept back to the charge.

‘Hah!’ he cried, and slapped the reins down hard on Vaillantif’s neck and used his spurs. The stallion lunged at the bit and spurted into a gallop. Grass tore up in great moist clods. Sun flashed on armour and blunted spear tips and gleamed on straining horsehide. Adam singled out his man — a solid knight upon a squat dun, and guided Vaillantif with the pressure of his knees, his lance held loosely and his body relaxed as he counted down the strides of space.

Timing his move to the last inch of ground, he adjusted his aim, gripped the lance and thrust forward. The strike was true. The knight’s lance wavered awry. He had closed his eyes against the impact and gone a fraction too high; Adam’s lance, striking true centre on his shield, sent him sailing over the crupper to crash in a heap on the muddy ground.

Adam caught the dun’s bridle. The knight’s squire had dismounted and was helping his dazed lord to his feet. Adam asked if he was all right, received a grudging assent, and with a curt nod of his own told the defeated man where to pay his debt, before wheeling Vaillantif in pursuit of another opponent.

He and a knight with a bronze-decorated helm traded several sword blows until they were separated by another group of four knights hacking desperately at each other. Adam recognised Geoffrey’s grey stallion; blood was trickling from a minor wound on its near forequarter and its nostrils were flared wide. Geoffrey was holding his own, but making no real impression on his opponent, an older thickset man who was obviously trying to wear him down. Adam gathered his reins and prepared to join and turn the balance.

‘My lord, to your right!’ warned Sweyn, warding his shield and sidling his bay nearer. Instead of spurring forwards, Adam pulled his right rein and turned Vaillantif to face a group of five young men, working as a team and obviously determined to take a prize like Vaillantif for their own.

Adam grinned wolfishly, twisted the reins again, and charged Vaillantif at the centremost knight, leaving Sweyn and Jerold to deal with those on his left, and Alun and Thierry with those on his right. The sorrel was sluggish to respond to his command and he had to use the reminder of spurs to bring his head up.

The two horses snapped together. Adam’s opponent struck and his blade rebounded off Adam’s shield. Adam’s powerful backhand stroke slammed the young knight’s shield inwards, clouting him in the mouth with its rim. Adam followed through immediately giving no respite, and the shield gave way again to a howl of pain. The man groped for his reins and missed them as he tried frantically to disengage. His horse plunged, went back on its haunches, and fouled the mount of the knight who was engaging Sweyn. The latter took immediate advantage and redoubled his efforts to belabour the opposition.

Detached from Adam by the pressure of battle, Thierry and Alun were too far away to prevent what happened next and Jerold, although he tried, was unable to fight clear of his own encounter and come to Adam’s aid. ‘Ware arms, my lord!’ he bellowed at the full pitch of his lungs, ‘in the name of Sweet Christ, ware!’

In the crowd, Heulwen screamed her husband’s name and started to run towards him but was caught back by one of Adam’s serjeants who had the presence of mind to know that if she ran on to the field among the milling and trampling of the great warhorses and the swinging weapons, she would be killed. She fought him like a wildcat, but he held on grimly, begging her to stop, and at last she did so because she could not break his grip and all her strength had gone. Sobbing, tear-streaked and panting, she turned in his hold to face the field, and by that time it was all over.

Adam, his sword lifted to strike at his struggling adversary, commanded Vaillantif with his thighs to meet the new challenge. The sorrel pivoted and staggered badly just as Adam’s raised right forearm took a vicious blow from a morning star flail. His sword became snared in the ricocheting chain and was jerked from his fingers, while some of the steel points in the weighted ball at the end of the chain caught in the mail rivets of his hauberk sleeve and the gambeson beneath, splaying iron and shredding fabric. The impetus of the blow tore him sideways and down from the saddle.

He landed hard, but rolled as he fell, and presented his shield to his enemy’s next assault. Enemy, not opponent, for the man cursing at Vaillantif and striking him out of the way with his shield was mounted on a foam-spattered piebald stallion. The morning star flail was certainly not a weapon of courtesy, nor was the manner of Warrin’s attack: slamming in from the side while Adam was still engaged and omitting to utter the obligatory warning of challenge.

Gasping, with black stars fluctuating before his eyes, Adam strove to his feet. His right arm was numb, he could not feel his fingers and his shield was about as much protection as a flimsy sheet of parchment against the man who was about to ride him down.

Cursing, Sweyn fought to disengage. Jerold had succeeded, but could see that it was futile — he was going to be too late.

With the flail swinging suggestively on its chain, gathering impetus, Warrin sent the pied stallion into a dancing rear. Adam watched death tower over him, mane rippling against the sky, the shod hooves showing two bright arcs that were the gates to the underworld. The rear blazed to its zenith, and Warrin de Mortimer prepared to strike.

The horse came down but twisted, crashing sideways, barged by the blood-streaked shoulder of a grey Spanish stallion. A descending forehoof clipped Adam’s shield. He staggered but kept his feet, and Warrin in turn was torn down from his horse and flung to the ground as Jerold reached him and held a blade at his throat.

Vaillantif was trembling and sweating, head hanging, tail limp. Moving gingerly, Adam went to examine him. The destrier was as wobbly as a newborn foal. Adam’s face was chalk white with fury as he stalked back to de Mortimer. ‘What have you done to my horse?’ he snarled, seizing the sword from Jerold.

‘I haven’t been near the spavined beast!’ Warrin stared up the blade and Adam stared down it, a muscle ticking in his cheek. ‘Belike he took a blow on the head in the fighting!’

‘Do you know why this groove in a sword blade is called the blood gutter?’ Adam said through his teeth. He began to lean on the hilt.

‘Enough!’ commanded Geoffrey of Anjou, dismounting to thrust Adam aside from his purpose. ‘This mêlée is an affair to prove valour, not an extension of your trial by combat. You both shame yourselves!’

‘Shame?’ Adam cried incredulously. ‘Look at the way this whoreson came at me, choosing his moment and full intending to do murder. The shame is not mine!’

‘Do you know for certain that he has interfered with your stallion?’ Geoffrey demanded. His face was flushed, translucent with his own anger.

‘God’s blood, it’s obvious!’ Adam snapped. Geoffrey stared. Adam fished for control, netted a semblance, and setting his jaw returned the sword to Jerold. ‘Seek for proof and you’ll find it, sire,’ he said on a quieter but still vehement note. ‘I know when I have been set up like a quintain dummy.’

‘What’s the matter here?’

They all turned to face William le Clito who was leaning down from his champing black destrier. Pink runnels of sweat streaked his face and he wiped at them with the leather edge of his gauntlet.

‘A breach of honour from one of your side,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Best if you withdraw him and keep him confined until we decide how serious the breach is.’

Le Clito shrugged. ‘Personal grudges are bound to make this kind of sport more dangerous, and in the heat of the moment men tend to forget their manners,’ he said with complacence.

‘Is this the result of impulse?’ Adam gestured at Vaillantif. Austin had appeared and was very gently trying to coax the wobbling horse towards the edge of the field. ‘Is this the kind of weapon used in courtesy?’ He nudged the flail with his toe.