"
"The three men you name are all stout fellows, and good swordsmen. As a
borderer, I suppose that you have practised with the lance?"
"We call it by no such knightly term. With us it is a spear, and nought
else; but all borderers carry it, both for fighting and for pricking up
cattle; and from the time that I could sit a horse I have always
practised for a while, every day, with some of my father's troopers, or
with himself, using blunt weapons whitened with chalk, so as to show
where the hits fell. Although in a charge upon footmen, our border
spearmen would couch their weapons and ride straight at their foe; in
skirmishes, where each can single out an enemy, and there is a series
of single combats, they do not so fight, but circle round each other,
trusting to the agility of their horses to avoid a thrust, and to
deliver one when there is an opening. Our spears are nothing like so
heavy as the knightly lances, and we thrust with them as with the point
of a sword."
"But in that way you can hardly penetrate armour," one of the other
esquires said.
"No, it is only in a downright charge that we try to do so. When we are
fighting as I speak of, we thrust at the face, at the armpit, the
joints of the armour, which in truth seldom fits closely, or below the
breastplate.
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