A Corpse in Shining Armour. Caro Peacock

       CHAPTER ONE

       London. June 1839

      At one end of the lists the Knight of the Green Tree was fighting to control his horse, a raw-boned chestnut hunter of sixteen hands or so, over-bitted and nervous of the flags fluttering in the breeze. The knight’s helmet was too big for him, threatening to tip down over his eyes, but with the reins and shield in one gauntleted hand and a lance in the other, he couldn’t do anything about it. At the other end of the lists his opponent waited patiently on a wall-eyed roan that looked as if it might have done a morning’s hard work pulling a brewer’s dray. The opponent wore no helmet, only his own thatch of hair the colour of good hay. He’d buckled a dented metal breastplate over his waistcoat, but unlike his opponent he had no arm or leg armour. His shield was plain wood. When his blue eyes caught mine he grinned like a schoolboy.

      ‘Are you ready, gentlemen?’

      The man in the top hat acting as marshal sounded impatient. It had taken ten minutes or so to get the chestnut facing approximately the right way, with the wooden barrier of the lists on the rider’s left hand.

      ‘Yes.’

      The knight’s voice echoed round his helmet. The man on the roan simply nodded, then they set off down their own sides of the barrier, lances pointing across their saddles towards each other’s shields. The chestnut pranced and curvetted like something out of a circus. The roan came on at a heavy canter, slow but straight as a steam piston and was past the halfway point when they met. A crack of wood, a noise like a shelf-full of saucepans falling, shouts from the spectators and a scream from one of the ladies. The Knight of the Green Tree was on his back in the sawdust, the chestnut up on his hind legs and the bare-headed man cantering on as if nothing had happened, tossing away the butt of his shattered lance. Muted applause and laughter broke out from a group of grooms standing near me.

      ‘Got ’im fair and square.’

      One of their own had triumphed, although they couldn’t make a song and dance out of it with all the gentry panicking about the unhorsed knight.

      He lay there on his back, helpless in his armour as a foundered turtle. Men of his own class ran to him, shedding their hats and the air of polite amusement they’d shown so far. The bare-headed man threw the roan’s reins to another groom, jumped off and ran to calm his opponent’s horse. I arrived at the fringe of the group as somebody managed to take off the knight’s helmet. It revealed a head of dark curly hair, matted with sweat, a face that would have been unusually handsome if it hadn’t been as red as a boiled lobster from being tin-canned, a pair of merry brown eyes.

      ‘A shrewd blow. Well done, Legge. Where is the man? And where’s Marmion?’

      He was still pinned to the ground by the weight of his armour, his friends kneeling in the sawdust round him fumbling to unbuckle it piece by piece. In spite of that, he managed an amused drawl. The other man had managed to get the chestnut down on all four feet by now. He came up leading it, so that the horizontal man could see that it was unhurt.

      ‘He’s well enough, sir. How about you?’

      Amos Legge’s Herefordshire accent was as strong as when I’d first met him, in spite of two years as the most popular groom in Hyde Park.

      ‘Well enough too, I believe,’ said the knight. ‘Thank you, all. I might just manage to stand up now.’

      This to his friends, who had succeeded in unbuckling breastplate and greaves. They helped him cautiously to his feet. He took off his gauntlet and shook Amos Legge by the hand.

      ‘I believe by the rules of tournament my horse and armour would be forfeit to you, Legge, only I’d be devilish glad if you don’t claim them.’

      Amos laughed.

      ‘We’ll get him schooled to it all right. He’s a bit green, that’s all.’

      ‘Green as my green tree. I suppose you’ll tell me I am, too. What did I do wrong this time?’

      Since as far as I could see the answer to that was ‘everything’ I was impressed by Amos Legge’s moderation in replying.

      ‘You need to sit deeper in the saddle, like I was telling you. Get your seat right and it doesn’t matter how hard somebody clouts you, you’ll stay put.’

      ‘Give me ten minutes to get myself in order, then we’ll take another run at it, if you’re agreeable.’

      Amos seemed willing, but the man in the top hat shook his head.

      ‘Your time’s up. The Knight of the Black Tower’s booked in next.’

      The face of the young man changed. He was still smiling, but the smile had become hard and mocking.

      ‘So he is. I suppose I should leave the field to him then.’

      The faces of his friends had changed too. Until that moment, they’d been laughing and relieved to find him unhurt. Now they seemed embarrassed. One of them actually took him by the arm and seemed to be urging him to come away. He shook the hand off.

      ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make a scene. Same time tomorrow then, Legge. Brown will take Marmion back.’

      Moving stiffly, still wearing his arm and shoulder armour, he strolled with his friends into the Eyre Arms Tavern by the jousting ground.

      While Amos Legge was handing over the chestnut to the man’s groom, I sat there on my own horse, Rancie, wondering why a crowd of rich young men, in this summer of 1839, should develop this craze for jousting–a sport that had died out around four hundred years ago. As far as they’d bothered to give a reason, it had to do with Queen Victoria’s coronation the year before. Some of the upper classes and a few newspaper editors had whipped themselves up into a state of annoyance because the ceremony of the Queen’s Champion had been neglected. From time immemorial, so they said, a knight in full armour had ridden into Westminster Hall at the coronation banquet and thrown down his gauntlet in challenge to anybody who denied the new sovereign’s right to the throne. Little Vicky had contrived to get herself crowned without this. A good thing too, I thought. The coronation had cost enough as it was, and besides it’s not fair to a horse to ride it into a building full of the over-excited upper classes. But some of the young bloods fancied themselves as Queen’s Champions. With their heads full of Walter Scott and antique ballads they’d decided to hold a tournament in the old style.

      The tournament was fixed for the end of August, two months away, at the Earl of Eglington’s castle in Scotland. But this was June, the height of the London season, and the would-be champions needed somewhere to practise without leaving the pleasures of the capital. The ideal place turned out to be the extensive gardens of the Eyre Arms Tavern, just north of Regent’s Park and conveniently close to the leafy lanes of St John’s Wood, where men of fashion kept their mistresses. There was even a terrace on the roof of the tavern where spectators could enjoy the fun. Fashionable London found it a great diversion from the usual round of afternoon calls or drives in the park. It was my first visit. I’d collected Rancie from the livery stables on the Bayswater Road, where Amos Legge worked, and ridden the short distance out there on my own.

      Amos Legge strolled across to me, now freed from his breastplate.

      ‘I’d no idea you were such a knight at arms,’ I said.

      He grinned and patted Rancie’s shoulder.

      ‘Back home, we’d go at each other on cart horses with kitchen mops, riding bareback too. Wasn’t a lad between Ledbury and Leominster could have me off.’

      I guessed that his barnyard experience was earning him a lot of extra guineas. The young bloods might have been born in the saddle, but they couldn’t compete with Amos in terms of horsemanship.

      ‘Your Knight of the Green Tree seems a good-humoured fellow,’ I said. ‘Who