WHAT’S IT LIKE?” I ASKED. “FIGHTING? IN A BATTLE?
Wido, Milon’s armorer, sniffed. Then he looked round the ring of Milon’s foot soldiers sitting under the sun and narrowed his eyes. “Go on then, Giff! Tell Arthur.”
Giff got to his feet and stared down at me. He smiled slightly; I think he did. He has a scar running from one corner of his mouth across his cheek and under his right ear, so it’s difficult to tell.
“You’ve been afraid?” he inquired.
“Yes,” I said. “Sometimes.”
“’Course you have,” said Giff. “We all have. When?”
“When I had to belly out across the ice and rescue Sian. She’s my sister. Well…she was.”
“Dead,” said Giff.
“No! No, it’s too difficult to explain.”
“That all, then?” asked Giff. First he looked at Wido, then round the group, and I saw him wink. Suddenly everyone leaped up and howled and stepped towards me, and I gasped and put up my fists, but when I looked round again, they were just laughing.
Giff drew back his lips so I could see his teeth. “You was saying?”
“Across the ice,” I said, and I realized I was out of breath, “and once I was afraid when Alan the armorer pressed his quarterstaff down on my windpipe. And when I wrestled with Jehan. You know, Milon’s farrier.”
“Jehan,” repeated Wido. “We knew Jehan, didn’t we, boys?”
“He wounded me,” I said, and I held up my left arm and showed them the long scar.
“Mad as a monkey,” said Wido.
“What happened to him?”
Wido clutched his throat with his hands, and then jerked back his head. “But you, Arthur,” he said. “You bravee!”
“Bravee!” repeated the ring of foot soldiers, and they all laughed again.
“You knight,” said Wido.
“Not yet,” I replied. “That depends on Milon.”
Wido caught the eye of another man. “Godard! I thought you’d swallowed your tongue.”
Godard advanced on me. He’s not all that big, but tough and sinewy. “Fighting-fear is different,” he began, and he rubbed his right hand across his mouth. “Soon as you know there’s going to be fighting, it’s like a fever. Makes your skin crawl. You get the squits. Then you start trembling and it don’t stop. Isn’t that right, boys?”
All Milon’s men were nodding. One of them looked the same age as I am. His Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down.
“Your mouth’s fig-dry,” Wido said.
“And the Night Hag, she tramples you,” said Giff.
Godard rubbed his hand across his mouth again. “And your fear gallops with you into the fight. You’re alive! Your blood’s on fire. You’re afraid. Everyone’s afraid. Some people show it, some don’t.”
“And some are brave,” added Wido, “and some aren’t.”
“Milon says you can’t learn to be brave,” I said. “It’s just instinct.”
“You can learn loyalty,” said Wido. “And duty. You can stick it out.”
“But when a Saracen runs at you, and he’s howling?” I asked.
“That’s when it counts,” Wido replied. “In the thick of it.”
“Cowards!” said Godard in disgust. “They’re worse than grass snakes.”
“They should be skinned,” said Wido.
“Remember bloody Gotiller?” asked Godard.
“He did for us, all right,” said Wido. “We lost five men because of him. So after the battle we opened up his stomach and drew out his gut and wound it round a pole.”
“The Saracens are worst,” said Giff. “I’ve fought the Germans and the Angevins, but the Saracens are worst. Howling and wailing. Ghastly wailing.”
Godard wrapped his arms around his chest. “Saracens know about loyalty and duty, all right. Bloody infidels! They’re cruel as fishhooks, and they think God is on their side.”
“Want to know what they did to a mate of mine?” Giff asked me.
The hot sun beat down, and I realized I was shivering. “What?” I asked.
“He’ll find out soon enough,” Wido said.
What I’ll find out is whether I’m good enough. Whether everything I know to be right—duty and loyalty and grit—is stronger than my fear once I’m actually in battle.
Not just fear. Worse than that. Yellow seizure. Battle-terror.
I’ve trained hard, and I trust Bonamy, and I know what I should do, but I’m still afraid.