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surrounded the ruined chapel, and found a clear area of meadow in which they
could get up speed and pretend to be hitting an enemy concentration.
The objections came when Jim broke the news that he wanted them to practice
without their armor for fear of attracting undue curiosity in anyone who might
see them so riding and also carrying lengths of tree limbs in their hands
instead of weapons and shields, for the same reason.
This latter suggestion, took most of the fun out of it for a great many of
them. The knights in particular had a tendency to feel foolish, galloping
their horses in close formation while holding what they disgustedly referred
to as sticks. Nonetheless, Jim insisted; and finally they agreed.
As he had expected, the main trouble was getting them to hold together in the
formation. Again, half the excitement of the battle charge for these men was
the race to see who could be first to come to blows with the enemy. Jim
finally fell back on faking some magic, to impress them.
He made them get on their horses in wedge formation, then he himself, on
foot, walked slowly about them muttering and waving his hands.
He explained that he was casting a magic web over them that would bind them
together; because the only way to victory would be the holding power of the
web that kept them in arrow shape. The magic would not only hold them
together, he promised, but would triple the strength of each of them, by its
tight, if invisible, bonds that held them close to each other. So that the
only way the wedge could fail would be if somebody happened to lose touch with
those next to him, and lose the extra strength the web would give.
They accepted this explanation so wholeheartedly that Jim was secretly
ashamed. But he consoled himself with the fact that nothing less would make
them hold together the way they should; and that it was vital they do so.
Much to his surprise, the magic was so firmly believed in, by all, that on
the next mock charge they clung together like veterans of fifty such charges;
and afterwards they were busy commenting to each other on how they could each
feel his strength tripled under the influence of the magic.
"It's because you're sharing each other's strength in the magic," Jim
explained with a straight face.
This satisfied them so completely that, for safety's sake, he added that this
was something that worked only during such a wedge-shaped charge. They should
not attempt to get the extra strength by staying close together under ordinary
battle conditions. Too ready a belief, Jim had already discovered, could be as
dangerous as too much skepticism.
"Now," he said, when he finally brought the exercises to a halt, "we should
be thinking about getting those extra horses."
By the time he said this, the wedge had already separated, as its human parts
normally did, into three parties: one consisting of Jim, his Companions, the
Prince, and Sir Raoul; another consisting of the men-at-arms; and a third of
Dafydd's three archers. In fact, since the archers had no horses, they had
stood to one side and watched the exercises, clearly more than a little put
out at not being able to join the rest although their interest in what was
going on tended to override this.
It was time to stifle this sort of division among the men; and that had
prompted Jim's decision to mention that it was high time that they saw about
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getting extra horses, not only for the three bowmen, but for the Prince.
Horses of any serviceable kind would do for the bowmen. Unfortunately, a
fairly good horse would be required for the Prince in short, a knight's horse.
It seemed to Jim that the only way of providing these horses would be to sneak
around the back of the French lines and steal them from the French. Sir Raoul
would be able to show them the way. The real problem would be to find men
capable of doing the stealing.
Jim rode his horse over to where the men-at-arms sat theirs. He noted with a
touch of annoyance that Theoluf was still among them.
Jim beckoned Theoluf aside.
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