Mary Gentle - The Road to Jerusalem

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The Road to Jerusalem

by Mary Gentle

Banners cracked in the wind and the hot grass smelled of summer. Sweat stung Tadmartin's eyes. Long

habit taught her the uselessness of clashing mail gauntlet against barrel-helm in an attempt to wipe her

forehead. She blinked agitatedly.

Sun flashed off her opponent's flat-topped helm; that brilliance that gives mirror-finish plate the name of

white harness. A momentary breeze blew through her visor. Unseen, she grinned. She cut the

singlehanded sword down sharply, grounding her opponent's blade under it in the dirt.

She slammed her shield against the opposing helm. "Concede?"

"Eat that, motherfucker!"

Knowing Tysoe, Tadmartin's unseen grin widened. She slipped back into fighting-perception,

apprehending with the limited peripheries of her vision all the tourney field (empty now, the formal

contests down to this one duel), the ranked faces of the audience, the glitter of light from lenses. A

soughing sound reached her, muffled through arming-cap and helm. Tournament cheers.

Tysoe launched an attack. Tadmartin panted. Both moving slow now after long combat.

Strung out so tight, nothing real but the slide of sun down the blade, the whip of the wind coming in on

her left side; foot sliding across the glass-slippery turf, heat pounding in her head. The body remembering

at muscular level all the drills of training. Tadmartin moved without thought, without intention.

She felt her hand slide on the grip, the blade's weight cut the air - Tysoe's two-handed sword smashed

down, parried through with her shield, her own blade cutting back; Tysoe's wild leap to avoid the belly

cut - all slowed by her perceptions so that she watched it rather than willed it. Felt her body twist, rise;

bring the thirty-inch blade back up and round and over in a high cut. Metal slammed down between

Tysoe's neck and shoulder. The impact stung her hand.

"Shit!"

Tysoe dropped to one knee. Now only one hand held the greatsword; the other arm hung motionless.

Tadmartin stepped in on the instant, footwork perfect, sword up:

"Yield or die, sucker!"

"Aw, shit, man! Okay, okay. I yield. I yield!"

Tadmartin held the position, shield out, sword back in a high singlehanded grip, poised for the smash that

- rebated blade or not - would shatter Tysoe's skull. Through the narrow visor she caught the lift of the

marshal's flag. A sharp drum sounded. Instantly she stepped back, put down the shield, slipped the

sword behind her belt, and reached up to unfasten the straps of the barrel-helm.

"Fuck, man, you broke my fuckin' arm!"

"Collarbone." Tadmartin pulled off the helm, shaking free her bobbed yellow hair. Sound washed in on

her: the shouting and cheering from the stands, the shrill trumpets. A surgeon's team doubled across the

arena towards them.

"Collarbone," Tadmartin repeated. "Hey, you want to use an out-of-period weapon, that's your problem.

That two-hander's slow."

"It's got reach. Aw, fuck you, man."

Tadmartin held the barrel-helm reversed under her arm. Casually she stripped the mail gauntlets off and

dropped them into the helm. She shook her head, corn-hair blazing against the blue sky. Conscious now

of the weight of belted mail, hugging her body from neck to knee; and the heat of the arming doublet

under it, despite the white surcoat reflecting back the sun.

"Tysoe, babe." She knelt, and put her helm down; awkward with the blunt sword shoved through her

belt; reached in and undid the straps and buckles holding Tysoe's barrel-helm on. The steel burned her

bare fingers. Gently she pulled the helm loose. Tysoe's arming-cap came away with it, and her brown

hair, ratted into clumps by sweat, spiked up in a ragged crest. The woman's bony face was bright scarlet.

"Shit, why don't it never rain on Unification Day?"

"That'd be too easy." She loosened the taller woman's surcoat. Tysoe swore as the belt released the

weight of the mail coat, and leaned back on the turf. "They're going to have to cut that mail off you, girl.

No way else to get to that fracture."

Disgusted, Tysoe said, "Aw, fuck it. That's my hauberk, man. Shit."

"Gotta go. See you after."

The drum cut out. Music swelled from the speakers: deliberate Military Romantic. Tadmartin, not

needing the marshals' guidance, walked across the worn turf of the stadium towards the main box. Breath

caught hot in her throat. The weariness not of one fight, but of a day's skirmishing in the heat, knotted her

chest. The muscles of her legs twinged. Bruises ached; and one sharp pain in a finger she now identified

as a possible fracture. She walked head high, trying to catch what breeze the July day might have to

offer.

The PA blared: "- the tournament winner, Knight-lieutenant Hyacinthe Tadmartin -"

It's PR, she reminded herself. The Unification Day tournament; blunt weapons; a show; that's all. Aw, but

fuck it, I don't care.

The applause lifted, choking her. She walked alone; a compact woman with bright hair, looking up at the

main box. A few of the commanders' faces were identifiable; and her own Knight-captain with the white

surcoat over black-and-brown DPMs. Tadmartin saluted with all the accuracy left to her. The steel mail

hauberk robbed her of breath in the suffocating heat. She plodded up the steps to the platform.

Spy-eyes and bio-reporters crowded close as Marshal Philippe de Molay, in white combat fatigues with

the red cross on the breast, stood and saluted her. He spoke less to her than to the media:

"Knight-lieutenant Tadmartin. Again, congratulations. You stand for the highest Templar ideal: the

protection of the weak and innocent by force of arms. The ideal that sustained our grand founder Jacques

de Molay, when the Unholy Church's Inquisition subjected him to torture, and would have given him a

traitor's death at the stake. The ideal that enabled us to reform the Church from within, so that now our

relationship with the Reformed Pope at Avignon is one of the pillars upon which the Order of the Knights

Templar stands. While there are women and men like you, we stand upon a secure foundation. And

while we stand upon the past, we can reach out and claim the future."

Tadmartin at last gave in to a long desire: she smeared her hand across her red and sweating face, then

wiped it down her surcoat. The grin wouldn't stay off her face. "Thank you, sieur."

"And how long have you been in the Order, lieutenant?"

"Seven years, sieur."

Questions came from the spy-eyes then, released to seek whatever sightbites might be useful for the

news networks. Tadmartin's grin faded. She answered with a deliberate slowness, wary in front of

camcorders and Virtual recorders. Yes, from a family in Lesser Burgundy, all her possessions signed

over to the Order; yes, trained at the academy in Paris; no, she didn't watch the Net much, so her

favourite programmes -

A blonde woman, one eye masked by a head-up Virtual Display, shoved her way between Tadmartin

and the Marshal of the Templar Order. Philippe de Molay's long face never changed but his

body-language radiated annoyance.

"Knight-lieutenant Tadmartin," the young woman said, with a precise Greater Burgundian accent. "Louise

de Keroac: I have you on realtime for Channel Nine. Knight-lieutenant Tadmartin, will you confirm that

you were in charge of the company responsible for the Roanoke massacre?"

5 July 1991

One estate over, the houses and the cars are newer and there's more space between everything. Here

the cars are old, knocked about, and parked bumper-to-bumper. Heat shimmers off pavements.

Terraces and semis shoulder each other. Pavement trees droop, roots covered in dogshit.

"Hey, Tad!"

Both Hook and Norton wear old Disruptive Pattern Material combat trousers, the camouflage light

brown on dark brown; and Para boots. Hook's hair is shaved down to brown fuzz. Norton grinds out a

cigarette against the wall.

"So what about the Heckler & Koch G11."

Tad ruffles Norton's hair; he catches her arm; she breaks the grip. Time was when bunking off school left

them conspicuous in the empty day. Now there are enough anomalies - unemployed, sick, retired,

re-training - that they merge. Tad with braided hair, jeans; pockets always full.

"Caseless ammo. Eleven millimetre. This one really works. Low penetration, high stopping power - they

want to use it for terrorist sieges."

Tad knows. She can remember the excitement of knowing the litany of technology. The skill in knowing

all measurements, all details; all the results of firing trials. She can remember when it was all new.

Tad and Hook end up in Norton's house, watching films on the old VCR. The living-room smells of milk

and sick, and there are dog-hairs on the couch. Someone - Norton's older sister, probably - has left a

clutch of empty and part-empty lager cans on the floor, along with stubbed-out cigarettes.

"So what's he say?"

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Mary Gentle - The Road to Jerusalem

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