Their master though had more to say before he left to fate what all men must in the end, not to his own men or his enemy but to those strangers in his city. “I have had cause to visit Mordei before and will again. Lord Fausto will doubtless play the part of a good host and give me all he has, his wealth and his city too. I have learned what a courteous guest ought and know all his knights, and you are none of them. How you came to follow this young and stubborn knight is no talk for now, and so I put forward this plan, that we have dinner along with our speech after you come over to me. Later, if you fight as well as you seem suited by nature to do in my eyes, you will have posts here or in Mordei, or elsewhere in the country that yields to me with Viljami dead, which will be much of it and rich.”
To that Sir Arsam said, “Count Servius, we have never spoken before, and never will again, so I will tell no lies, even jesting ones. We are from many and faraway cities each boasting its own merit and suffering from flaws it hates to have noticed, and nowhere is it wise to tell men of your betrayals before you seek to split them from their friends.”
“It was nothing but the last of my mercy.” Count Servius said that and pointed his men toward the battle. The clash of arms then was meager in the number of shields and men but not in skill or might, for not a single man among them had failed at some time or other to trod the spear-field and leave it still alive, as not all men are able to do. Sir Joram drew blood first with a swing of his once-bright blade that then was reddened and made dark, but his foe did not bear that and smashed the knight's side with his wrathful mace so that he stumbled.
Those two blows were the first of a hundred and more. Sir Mort dragged back Sir Joram and took his place in the front that his friend might regain his wind while his own long sword passed through the throat of the foe. His shield, thicker than most, kept from him such strikes as Sir Joram had suffered, but it was rattled by blows that nonetheless shook him. Sir Arsam on the other side used his own mace better than the dead man had and struck a Saphonian so heavy a blow on his helm that he crumpled and fell to the ground. Accustomed to combats both single and massed, he did not step over the fallen in his eagerness to press forward, but instead he allowed the feet of foes to be troubled by that hindrance.
On the Saphonian side there was a knight with a shield that showed an apple, green, over purple and yellow checkered, who laid about with his ax that could not be withstood. He was Sir Mannus of Saphonium, a knight who had been squire to Servius, Sir Servius then, and had from him all his skill and from his father his bigness. That man was a sailor who died in a storm, a doom too often heard. He left his son and his daughters nothing save this, that Sir Servius swam ashore from the wreck and recalled that one sailor for how big he was and fit for knighthood so that he sought out Mannus his son and trained him. From that Sir Mannus judged any deed he did not enough to repay Count Servius, even such as he did that day when he cleaved between Sir Kasya's shoulder and neck who never saw Denes again. Nor did he cease there, proud of his strength, but instead with one blow broke Sir Eliot's shield that had on it an owl with one wing raised. With that knight staggered, Sir Mannus left off from him and gave Sir Izaak of Vartanesc a blow to the thigh. That wounded knight fought on and lived till the finish of the battle, but no longer.
Count Servius wielded the ax as well, but not in that melee at first, for he allowed his men to show their might till it seemed not enough to overcome the foe. Sir Joram, when his wind was back, was eager to do something worth telling and did, dealing gory blows to the left and to the right so that they gave way before him, the Saphonians, some dead and many afeared of his prowess. Sir Izaak too, who knew his vigor waned, had this resolve, to go not alone to the land that has no road back, and he shook the foe with his blows. The count saw that and bore it not that in his own palace he should be pressed by a man he despised for his youth and for that he was son of a man he slew, and he stepped into the fray.
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Sir Augusto wanted nothing more than that and went against him with his iron-tipped spear, but not for long did he have the use of it. For it struck the shield of Count Servius, thick and well-made and on it a cave hidden in part by bushes, with such fierceness that the wood in both splintered. He unsheathed therefore his sword and set about with all his might and fury to bring the count's life to its end.
The Saphonians, most of them, had too much of trouble to worry for how their master fared, but Sir Mannus had no mind to bear it that he should outlive his lord. He made a path by his vigor to the woe of the foreign knights, and his ax reached near to Sir Augusto when his way was blocked by another knight bent on daring, who was Sir Arsam. That king's son from Estash where knights earn their name gave the count's man such a blow to his cheek with his mace heavy in its flanges as few might withstand, but Sir Mannus was one of them. The ax of that warlike man was stopped by a shield when it struck first, but at its second blow Sir Arsam took hurt in his side though his mail kept his blood and his life within him.
Sir Arsam groaned at that but did not leave off from the fight. He smote with his mace Sir Mannus below the arm when that man had his ax raised for a life-robbing swing and made him to roar, and the blows of the ax came faster than before, and mightier too, at first. Sir Arsam's warding shield saved him then, but not for all time, for the fierceness of those attacks rent it apart and cost Sir Arsam its aid, which was an effort worthy of a brave man, but Sir Mannus had little of wind after that. Sir Arsam drew his dagger with his hand freed by the loss of the shield, stabbed it through the belly of his wearied foe, and followed that with his mace that could no longer be borne by the wounded knight, who died.
That was a great harm to the side of Count Servius, but his men fought on so long as he did also, which he did, and that heartily. Even Sir Augusto, his enemy, marveled at how big the man was in the melee, but for all that had no mind to yield or be found the worse. Mordei's young knight seemed to wax in skill and might as he clashed with his foe, a man more fearsome in war by far than the bandits and pirates he had met before in the contest of arms. Swifter and swifter his hands wielded his flashing brand and struck to give wounds to the count on his hands, his legs, and his neck.
At last Count Servius refused to let Sir Augusto have his will in that clash with his men suffering all around him so that the number of them waned worryingly. He parried a blow from the shining sword and smote the bold and young knight on his helm not with the blade of his ax, but the handle, a startling stroke. He sought then to throw the stunned knight to the ground where warding off blows is hard, but by his effort he roused Sir Augusto. That knight, though startled, was sure in combat from all the drills he had and battles against foes who wanted his life, and jabbed the count's thigh to deny him the clinch. Servius stumbled then, once the lord of Saphonium by his wickedness but not a day more, for his chest then had a blade buried in it which belonged to the lord by right.
The defeated count's men groaned when they saw that and yielded. Some died from their wounds but some lived after the battle, for that was the end of it, and the like was true of the foreign knights also. Count Augusto honored them all, the living and the dead both. Afterwards he aided those who desired to travel more but asked any to stay who would. Sir Eliot and others went on and spread the renown of it to lands far off, and King Khambuz was glad to hear of what his son had done, who stayed in Saphonium for some time, and when he returned to Estash he did so with a wife, children, and all the count's friendship.
The count, that is, of Saphonium and Mordei both, for after Lord Fausto his grandfather died and Lord Demetrio his uncle, he was the heir, and the feud between those two cities, equal in men's esteem and worthiness, ended as Count Lucius his father had hoped. Later, they say, when his own son grew to manhood, that heir was given the clothes Faustus the tailor had made for the lord, and they fit him just as well as they had his father though the two men disagreed as to their size.
