The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 28

The next morning they woke up late and had breakfast at the brothel. Once they were finished they had a steady walk to the practice field and they trained some more. They saw longshot in action and he was very impressive with the bow. After they had a light lunch and were about to get back at it the silent knight appeared on the field in full armour with an older man who was quite plump.

            “Hey Sir Arthur, good to see you again” Simon said as he shook the knights hand, the knight nodded at this and pointed to the older guy.

            “My names Rodger, I’m Arthur’s dad, he tells me good things about you Simon and it’s a pleasure” Rodger said and held his hand out which Simon shook.

            “The pleasures all mine sir, it’s a great honour to meet you, your son is one of the best fighters I know” Simon replied.

            “He works at it and I’m very proud of him. He’s going to being fighting in this tourney and I’ll be cheering him on from the side-lines, wish I could enter but I’m not the man I was” Rodger said.

            “I’m sure you could show is a thing or two as you must have been a great fighter” Simon replied.

            “From what I’ve heard from Arthur, I doubt I could show you anything at all, but I’d like to see you in action and my son would love to spar with you” Rodger said.

            “Of course sir” Simon replied and he got into position opposite the silent knight and drew his blade out and picked up his shield. The silent knight did the same but got his shield from his back, once they were ready Simon nodded at the knight and began the fight with an easy swing which the knight blocked. The knight came back at him with a flourish from his sword and moved pretty quickly even in full armour, so Simon had to go on the defensive and moved back a little bit, he easily managed to block all of the knights attacks as he was faster because he wasn’t in full armour. He then went on the attack and move around the knight and dealt a series of blows against him which the knight deflected with his shield or sword. They went back and forth like this for quite some time, each testing each other’s defensives looking for holes but never finding any. Simon was amazed by the stamina of the knight as he knew how heavy armour was but the knight kept on going with the fight and moved just as quickly even after several minutes of the fight. The fighting style of the knight was also very good and he swapped up the way he fought several times during the fight, going from being really aggressive and using heavy swings, to being more precise and using more skilful swings to try and get through Simon’s defensives. This kept him on his toes and though he was very good at finding weaknesses in most opponents to exploit he couldn’t with the knight. Even as good as the knight was the armour became his downfall as the longer the match went on the more tired he would get from carrying this and Simon used this to his advantage and eventually after twenty odd minutes of the fight he bested the knight.

            “That was well fought indeed, if you both had been wearing armour perhaps the boot would have been on the other foot” Rodger said.

            “It’s possible, Arthur certainly is the best I’ve fought against and is an extremely good fighter, I could learn a lot from him” Simon replied between deep breaths.

            “That you could and I’m sure you will get chance as there is still two weeks to the tourney, I must be off but I’ll see you around” Rodger said.

            “Goodbye sir” Simon replied and Rodger walked off. After Simon recovered his breath he sparred with a few other people as did the knight. When Simon got the chance he would watch those matches and learned a few new things from these observations. Once it was time to leave he went back to the lord’s estate to rest there instead of going out drinking again.