Joust Jesting

“Zounds! Thou shalt taste the tip of my lance, worm!”

“Not if thou dost taste the tip of mine first, cockroach!”

The two knights huffed at each other through their visors, their horses copying them beneath their blinkered hoods.

They turned their trusty steeds and clip-clopped back to either end of the tilt – the posh word for the separator that ran down the middle of the jousting field – there to tarry until the baroness dropped her hanky, thus setting the joust in motion.

The ‘cockroach’ was Sir Gladhehad, the land’s jousting champion for the last ten years. He was a wily old chap, his wiliness learned while in the Holy Wars, and on the jousting circuit since his return. He was glad he had retired from real fighting; he could now concentrate on skewering jumped-up wannabes like his opponent today.

The ‘worm’ was Sir Lunchalot, who liked to lunch. A lot. Hence his large gut, large legs, large arms, and large posterior. It was this latter feature especially that invariably enabled him to stay in the saddle, even when the other jouster’s lance made juddering contact with his considerable frame.

The beating sun – it was England’s summer that day – brought out the magnificence of each knight’s accoutrements – a posh word for ‘gear’. Sir Gladhehad’s garniture – a posh word for ‘armour’ – gleamed like nobody’s business. Sir Lunchalot’s did too, though not quite as much since he could only afford a grade 2 squire to do the polishing thereof, and as everyone knows, it’s the grade 1s who were the tops at that sort of thing.

But it was Sir Lunchalot who had the more splendid caparison. This is another posh word for the cover that went over the horse at those events, identifying the knight and adding … well … splendour to proceedings. Of course, a caparison offered no protection whatsoever to the poor Equidae – a posh word for ‘horses’ – and a mis-aimed lance would pierce it, no problem.

Sir Lunchalot’s caparison was bright scarlet (good for hiding blood splatter, so as not to shock faint-hearted spectators) with golden trim and his coat of arms, featuring a sumptuous full-English breakfast embroidered by his sister, Celestina, on both the horse’s stifles – a posh word for equine hips.

In comparison, Sir Gladhehad’s caparison was a simple affair, although this had more to do with the fact that beyond payment for a grade 1 squire, the knight was as tight as a proverbial waterfowl’s behind. As long as he himself looked the ticket, his horse could be draped in a bedsheet for all he cared. And his horse didn’t care either, mainly because there were no mirrors in the stables; it just assumed, in this case, that it looked as well turned-out as Sir Lunchalot’s steed.

The crowd held its collective breath, awaiting the baroness’s signal. It was her place to do the hanky-dropping because her husband was perhaps the laziest man in the kingdom; however, she needed him to give her the go-ahead first. The baron, sitting next to her on the bigger of the two thrones that were the centrepiece of the stand, was busy pickin’ chicken out of his teeth; it was his habit to have a feed-up before a big tournament, and he’d fed up on a couple of roast fowl which were currently working their way through his digestive tract.

The baroness, in turn, was fed up waiting for him to give her the ok to go, so she dropped her hanky without his say-so … but not before she’d glanced meaningfully at each of the knights – glances that suggested suggestive dalliances.

The knights tightened their grip on the reins of their respective mounts. They were about to urge them on when something happened to stall them: the baron started shouting at the baroness, in full view and earshot of everyone at the event; to accompany the chicken, he’d had a couple of flagons (funnily enough, his flagon actually did have a dragon) of wine, so any decorum he might have shown – and he showed very little at the best of times – had fled.

“How darest thou, miserable wench?! Couldst thou not have waited a mere mo’! It is my pegor– … pegro– … it is incumbent upon me, me alone, to authorise the inshi– … inishti– … start of the joust! What wert thou thinking?!”

The baroness turned the colour of Sir Lunchalot’s caparison, such was her embarrassment. At the two ends of the tilt, the knights watched on, both seething at the public humiliation of the good woman. Sir Gladhehad made an important decision, there and then.

In the stands, the baron, with much effort for he was even more portly than Sir Lunchalot, bent down to pick up the hanky.

“Now we may begin,” he muttered to his wife, at a volume that everyone could hear.

He dropped the hanky. The two knights dug their spurs into the flanks of their horses, who whinnied in pain before setting off at a canter.

The gap between the two men shrank, shrank, and shrank some more … then just before contact, Sir Gladhehad pulled his lance off target, causing Sir Lunchalot to reciprocate. The two rode past each other without a strike – a so-called ‘mercy pass’.

The baron – who had found on the plate beside him an un-noshed chicken drumstick which he had been gnashing away at – was so irritated by the aborted pass that he harrumphed loudly and got a bit of meat stuck in his windpipe. One of his servants tried to perform a rudimentary Heimlich manoeuvre on him, five centuries before it was invented. The other servants faffed about, looking concerned but not helping much. The baroness clasped her hands at her bosom, fingers crossed…

While all the commotion was going down, Sir Gladhehad bade his horse trot to the middle of the tilt, which it obligingly did, forgetting or forgiving (who could tell?) the recent use of spurs. Sir Lunchalot understood that his foe wanted to parley, so he joined him.

“Didst thou witness that?” Sir Gladhehad asked. “The way he treated my lady?”

“Aye,” Sir Lunchalot scowled. “What a despicable beast!”

“’Tis so,” Sir Gladhehad agreed.

“What I would not give…” Sir Lunchalot began, leaving the thought hanging in the air. His erstwhile opponent nodded clankily.

“That maketh two of us!”

They watched on as several servants finished tending to their master, recovering now; the baroness looked utterly crestfallen.

“I was thinking…” Sir Gladhehad said, leaving his own thought in the air.

“As was I…” Sir Lunchalot said.

It was as if the two were connected by ESP, again five centuries before such a phenomenon was investigated. Sir Gladhehad leaned in.

“Then why do we not…?”

The rest of their conversation was conducted in whispers, while in the stand, with the baron now fully recuperated, a hubbub grew.

“For what are ye waiting?” the baron called out – gruff now from the coughing.

The two knights peered at each other through their visors, each wondering if he could trust the other.

“Dost thou think we can get away with it, though?” Sir Lunchalot asked, a trace of doubt in his voice.

“Of course!” Sir Gladhehad said confidently. “It is common knowledge that his lordship is the most despised man in the kingdom. Even his personal guard hate him – I know for I occasionally play nine men’s morris with some of them. And after one or two flagons of ale, they tend to open up about those types of things. No one will miss the noxious fellow.”

“If thou sayest so.”

“But remember,” Sir Gladhehad said, leaning in closer still. “Thou must hit the left shoulder of my horse. Not too hard mind, no more than a heavy tap – I am quite fond of my horse! I will do the rest.”

“And thou art sure thou canst make it look like a chance act?”

“I am as sure of this as I am sure thou art a worm!”

Sir Lunchalot bridled at this apparent insult, but then heard something: a faint chuckling emanating from his adversary’s helmet. He chuckled himself now.

“Then let us proceed!”

“Hold! One last thing,” Sir Gladhehad said. “When the deed be done, and the dust hath settled, we shall meet here again. Winner taketh all.”

“All?” Sir Lunchalot asked with an unseen frown.

“Why, my lady, naturally!”

“Ha! Then to it!”

And with that, the two knights turned their horses, trotting back to the ends of the tilt to await the re-dropping of the hanky.