“Probably not. But what harm does it do to check?”

Reynevan shrugged.

“Onwards, then.”

They had to walk carefully, paying attention not to step in shit since the surrounding woods had become, as they did during every tournament, a public latrine. It looked as though every inhabitant of and visitor to Ziębice had been in the bushes at least twice to defecate and urinate. It stank like hell. It was clearly not the first day of the tournament.

Trumpets sounded and the crowd yelled again in one great voice. This time, they were close enough to hear the cracks of lances breaking and the thuds of contestants colliding with one another.

“A lavish tournament,” commented Samson. “Lavish and opulent.”

“As is customary with Duke Jan,” observed Scharley.

They were passed by a brawny farm worker leading a buxom, ruddy-faced and fiery-eyed beauty into the bushes. Reynevan watched the couple with affection, hoping in his heart of hearts that they would find a discreet place that was also free of shit. His mind was preoccupied with the lingering thought of what the couple would soon be enjoying in the bushes and he felt a pleasant tingling sensation in his loins. Never mind, he thought, never mind, only moments separate me from similar delights with Adèle.

“This way.” Scharley led them between the booths of a blacksmith and an armourer with characteristic intuition. “Tie your mounts up here, to the fence. And come this way, it’s not so crowded.”

“Let’s try to get nearer to the stand,” said Reynevan. “If Adèle is here, she’ll—”

His words were drowned out by fanfares.

“Aux honneurs, seigneurs chevaliers et escuiers!” boomed the marshal of the heralds after the fanfares had faded away. “Aux honneurs! Aux honneurs!”

Duke Jan’s credo was to be modern. And European. Differing in this regard among Silesian Piasts, the Duke of Ziębice suffered from a provincial complex and bemoaned the fact that his duchy lay on the periphery of civilisation and culture beyond which there was nothing but Poland and Lithuania. Hence his insistence, irksome to those around him, on the use of French as the official language of la jouste.

The knights set their lances in the rests and rode at each other along the tilt accompanied by the thudding of hooves. One of them, as evidenced by the emblems on the caparison, depicting a mountain peak on a silver and red chequered pattern, was a member of the Hoberg family. The other knight was a Pole, judging by the Jelita coat of arms on his shield and the goat in the coat of arms on his modish helmet with a barred visor.

Duke Jan’s European joust attracted great numbers of guests from Silesia and abroad. The space between the tiltyard and a specially fenced-off area was occupied by fabulously coloured knights and pages, including members of the most important Silesian families.