The Tournament Read Free

case and if it be so, dispatch him to me at once. No less than the reputation of the corpus christianum requires our best man at this tournament.
    Henry, R
    By the way, I appreciated your efforts in the matter of Cumberland’s son. They did not go unnoticed.
    In those days, it was more than just Christendom’s reputation that was at stake: the Moslem sultan was threatening Christendom itself.
    His empire spread from Persia in the east to Algiers in the southwest and had recently crossed the Danube. Eight years earlier, in 1538, the Sultan’s navy, led by the brilliant Barbarossa, had done the previously unthinkable: it had defeated a European fleet—a ‘Christian alliance’ of ships—at Preveza. This Christian alliance, assembled by Pope Paul III himself, lost over forty ships, more than 3,000 prisoners, and, after paying 300,000 gold ducats in reparations to the Ottoman sultan, a large portion of Europe’s pride.
    Then Suleiman’s land army had taken the city of Buda. Now it was poised at the gates of Vienna. Suleiman’s nearest European neighbour, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, was said to be apoplectic with rage at the Sultan’s incursions into his territory, but except for sending out ever more spies to report on the movements of the Moslem armies, there was nothing Ferdinand could do. Suleiman’s empire was twice the size of all of Christendom combined and growing larger by the day.
    And that was all before one spoke of Suleiman himself. He was said to be a wise and shrewd ruler, a speaker of no less than five languages. He was a gifted poet and patron of the arts, a cunning strategist and—unlike his bitter enemy, Archduke Ferdinand, and many of Europe’s kings and queens—he was utterly beloved by his people.
    On more than one occasion my teacher had said to me that while the royal lines of England, France and Spain jockeyed among themselves for pre-eminence, a great shadow had been rising in the east. If it went unchecked our noble families might one day look up from their squabbles and find themselves paying tribute to a Moslem overlord.
    The other unspoken challenge in the gilt invitation was the inevitable contest that this tournament would pose between faiths. Just as he had done at Preveza, Suleiman was pitting his god against ours, and at Preveza his god had won.
    ‘Sir, is this Mr Giles still the best player in England?’ I inquired.
    My teacher said, ‘He most certainly is. I still play him regularly. He beats me nine times out of ten, but on the odd occasion I manage to outwit him.’
    ‘That sounds like our record.’
    Mr Ascham smiled at me. ‘Yes, but I have a feeling that our record will soon be reversed. Giles, on the other hand, will always have the upper hand on me. But this’—he held up the invitation—‘this is momentous. Giles will be thrilled to answer the king’s call.’
    Mr Giles most certainly was.
    Mr Ascham sent him to meet with my father, who (again, typically) arranged for a test of Mr Giles’s chess abilities: a game against my father himself. Naturally, Mr Giles lost this game.
    Like everyone else in England, Mr Giles was reluctant to beat a king who, in addition to beheading two of his wives (one of whom had been my mother), had had Thomas Cromwell beheaded for match-making him with one of them. It was not unknown for those who defeated my father at other games to end up with their heads mounted on stakes atop London Bridge.
    To my surprise, however, upon winning the game my father reportedly boomed: ‘Do not play lightly against me, Giles! I do not need a sycophant representing England and the primacy of Christ and the Christian faith at this event. I need a player!’
    They played again and Mr Giles beat my father in nine moves.
    Things proceeded swiftly from there.
    A small travelling train was assembled, with carts, horses and guardsmen for the journey across Christendom.
    But then just as Mr Giles was about to depart Hertfordshire, a terrible case of