Baltazar squeezed the cell phone in his mailed fist, tightening his thick fingers like a vise, until he felt the satisfying crunch of plastic and metal. He tossed the ruined instrument to the groom holding the reins of a giant gray sorrel. He took a steel helmet from the hands of his waiting squire and lowered it onto the padded cap on his head.

With his sturdy frame encased in gleaming armor from head to toe, Baltazar resembled a hulking robot from a science-fiction film epic. He was far more agile than any metallic monster, however. Even wearing armor that weighed seventy pounds, he easily pulled himself into the stallion’s high-backed saddle.

The squire handed Baltazar a fifteen-foot wooden lance. Called a courtesy lance because of the blunt steel tip that distinguished it from a sharp-pointed war lance, the weapon was still potentially lethal when propelled forward by the power and strength of the huge Belgium horse. Baltazar had bred the animal from a long line of great warhorses that were known as destriers in medieval times. The animal was twice the size of an ordinary riding horse. Even without its protective armor, his mount weighed more than a ton.

Baltazar rested the lance across the thick, arching neck. The squire handed him a shield that came to a tapering point at the bottom. The head of a bull was emblazoned in black on the white shield. The same bull’s-head motif decorated Baltazar’s tunic and a flowing cloth that was draped over the horse’s body.

With the lance at rest, Baltazar bent forward until he could see through the occularium, a narrow horizontal slit set high in the face of the helmet. On his left was a low, solid fence known as the tilt. On the other side of the tilt, at its far end, was a rider, also dressed in full armor, who was mounted on an equally large horse.

Baltazar had singled the man out of his mercenary corps. His practice opponent had a sturdy physique and was an accomplished rider. Like a sparring partner for a professional boxer, he usually came out on the losing end in his jousts with Baltazar. He was paid extra to compensate for his bumps and bruises. Baltazar tended to treat his opponent lightly, not because of any sympathy. He simply didn’t want the bother of training a new practice knight. But after learning about the failure of the hijacking, Baltazar was in a murderous mood.