The weight of chainmail embraces his shoulders and arms, cool to the touch. Its heaviness brings him security. The haubergeon hangs down to his mid-thighs in tinkling ripples. Beneath it, a quilted gambeson. Cuisses cover his legs, but given the paucity of his subjects he feels no need to arm himself further than this. A squire slips a white surcoat over Siegfried’s head. The surcoat bears the crest of the Lords of Pettau, what is called, for reasons unknown to him, the fur. He can only describe it as a kind of colonnaded pinecone. A star with an escutcheon of arches. When he wears the surcoat he borrows the authority of the lord. It makes Siegfried, to his own Sunday embarrassment, stand a little bit taller as he refastens his belt.

“No need to arm the horses,” he says to the squires.

Everyone is dressed now, and ready. The two men wear their large, bucket-like helms but Siegfried is satisfied with a mail coif. A groom brings out Siegfried’s horse first, followed by the others. Its black coat glistens in the folds of its muscles, the whites of its eyes showing as the groom yanks its head in the appropriate direction of Siegfried. Suddenly, the morning is no longer quiet. Horses fill it with the sounds of their stamping and huffing, and men with their preparations. Siegfried runs his hand across the sleek expanse of his horse’s neck. Then he mounts with no need for help, puts on his leather gloves, takes the reins. He gives his men the forward command and the day commences behind it.