Fully one quarter of the men in the hall, all of them young, had eaten sparely and drunk not at all during dinner, for they were to be the focal point of this night’s activities. Their names had been chosen by lot, to the chagrin of their less fortunate peers who had not been picked, and when they were called upon later to step forward, they would fight against each other, singly and in groups, as though their lives depended upon the outcome, which, in one minor respect, at least, they did. They were the real entertainers here, but their performance and the abilities they demonstrated would be watched closely and critically judged by their peers and companions, for the competition among knights was always fierce and belligerent, and no aspect of anything they ever did could fail to reflect upon their reputations for competence and dependability.
Technically speaking, the combat in which they would engage was for sport alone, with wooden weapons and dulled practice swords so that there should be no risk of injury or death. The reality was, however, that many a knight had died in such events, trying too hard to snatch a victory from a stronger and more able opponent. Hugh was fully aware of the importance of the combative stage of the banquet, and he was unhappy that he himself would not be able to participate, or even to watch the fights, but he said nothing to anyone because he had no way of knowing who belonged to the brotherhood and who did not. And he knew, too, that it was during this stage of the activities that the real business of the Gathering was carried out in the secret chambers far below, while the attention of all the uninitiated was tightly focused on the contests being waged here. Most of the older knights had already begun to leave the hall after the meal, before the fighting began, although they would all have been welcome to remain and enjoy the activities, but this part of the night’s festivities had been carefully designed, and was now generally accepted, as the purview of the younger attendees at the Gathering, and tradition dictated that they be left to enjoy it without the inhibiting presence of their elders.
There was nothing casual or accidental about the regularly scheduled Gatherings and the activities that took place there, nor was there anything coincidental about the physical similarity of all the men in attendance. They were all knights, and that single distinction set them apart from other men in a number of ways that were plainly visible. They were all well born, for one thing, although no law or requirement stipulated that a knight must be of noble birth. It simply happened that the vast majority of knights were born into aristocratic, land-owning families. Of course, had they been born in different circumstances, they would have had their lives and all their working days laid out for them from the moment of birth, and they would have spent their days on earth as common working men, bound by the laws of feudalism to serve the owner of the land on which they lived, and struggling every day to provide for the families with which they would have been encumbered early in life.
Among the wealthy, land-owning families, under the law of primogeniture the holdings of the family, its land and wealth, passed from the father to the oldest surviving legitimate son. Other sons— younger and therefore lesser—were expected to make their own fortunes and were faced with selecting one of two professions: knighthood or priesthood. Most became knights and fought for their livelihood, espousing the causes of their feudal overlords; others, physically weaker, or disabled in some way, or even intellectually inclined and gifted, joined the Church, where, as clerics, they could live out their lives, often usefully, without being a burden on their families.
The vast majority of well-born young men, however, hundreds of thousands of them throughout all the countries of Christendom, were knights, and as such, they were trained to fight from their earliest boyhood. They were encouraged to fight, and expected to know everything that could be known about weaponry, horses, and armor, as well as to be proficient in every kind of fighting and warfare. The awareness that physical prowess is the only valid measure of a man’s worth was hammered into them at every stage of growth from infancy. Paradoxically, however, under the stern and unyielding eye of the all-powerful Church and its ubiquitous clerics, they were simultaneously forbidden to fight, or even to brawl in public, and could be rigorously, even savagely, punished if they flouted the law. There was a very real need, therefore, for formal occasions like the Gatherings, at which young knights could fight among themselves legally, venting their pent-up frustration and energy while measuring themselves, publicly, against the best among their peers.
Hugh looked about him again, his eyes seeking the men who would fight that night. They were easy to find, for they were all sober, their demeanor serious, each of them withdrawn into himself, contemplating the strategies he would employ in the contest ahead, and as Hugh saw how they all resembled each other, his lips quirked in a tiny grin, for he knew that he himself, seen from behind, would have been indistinguishable from all of them, and yet instantly recognizable as a knight.
A knight was defined and could be instantly identified, in any country of Christendom, by his musculature; Englishman, German, Frank, Gaul, or Norman, it made no difference. All knights used similar weapons, wore virtually identical armor and trappings, and fought the same way, so that the only advantage any individual could gain over his peers was through constant and unflagging training and practice, involving the endless repetition of drills and exercise, hour after hour, day after day, month after month without respite, trying to go further, to endure more, and to last longer than any other man possibly could under the same circumstances. To do otherwise, to fail to train, was to die eventually on some field, your stamina and strength ground down and undermined until you fell, bested and beaten by someone who had simply worked harder and trained for longer and with more dedication and discipline than you had. And so no knight worthy of his title would ever contemplate allowing a day to pass without at least six hours of grinding, disciplined training of some kind.
A steel-hilted broadsword with a four-foot-long, three-inch-wide blade could weigh fourteen pounds. An unhorsed knight, afoot and encumbered by a sixty-pound coat of chain mail and all the padding and reinforcement that went with it, might have to stand and swing that sword one-handed, fighting for his life without rest and for minutes at a time. Thus the physical phenomenon known as the knight’s build: neck and shoulder muscles, heavy and corded like ships’ ropes, sloped down to enormously wide shoulders and gigantically muscled arms that projected sideways, pushed forward and into prominence by the massive bulges of chest, back, and torso; waists and hips were usually narrow and tight, above gargantuan thighs and tightly muscled calves that appeared to be constructed of slabs of meat. There were more than a hundred and a half such men gathered here in the banquet room, the only real difference between them being that some were longer of leg, and therefore taller, than others. Most of them could neither read nor write, preferring to leave such foolery to clerics, but without exception, they could all be relied upon to fight unflaggingly, at any time and without provocation, until their great strength had been exhausted and they collapsed senseless.
Looking about him now, Hugh saw that the crowd was good-natured and relaxed, the wines and ale were excellent and plentiful, and everyone in attendance was anticipating a marvelous night of entertainment. His father and grandfather had already left the hall, among the first to vanish, and they were now being followed by others, and although Hugh had been warned by his grandfather that this would occur and would not be remarked upon by anyone, it seemed to him at first that the exodus of elders and prominent knights was too obvious to go unnoticed. Fortunately, however, he also saw that their departures were masked, to a great extent, by a general pattern of movement as men began to change seats and to circulate among the tables, visiting friends and exchanging wagers on the outcome of the fights that would soon begin. After that, he was even able to relax slightly and breathe more calmly, until it dawned upon him that the time of his own inquisition was rapidly approaching.
It was his cousin, Godfrey St. Omer, who stood up eventually and clicked his fingers to capture Hugh’s attention, and moments after that the two of them were headed down into the bowels of the castle, the din of the banquet hall fading rapidly behind them. Godfrey, normally irrepressible, was a silent, vigilant escort on this occasion, and he led Hugh quickly through the preliminary approaches to the secret assembly area and through the first set of doors, to stand in the circle of identical doors in the octagonal vestibule. He rapped on one with the hilt of his