I can see helping to put on or take off armour to have potential for tender intimacy - not the raunchy sexual kind, more like reaching beneath the plate to adjust the doublet, asking if it sits right now? Pulling the straps, checking the articulation of the faulds, the seat of the pants so the ride won’t leave her sore, straightening out her mail voiders, using a piece if char to draw a heart on the gorget, a cheesy pun about gorgetous, a squeeze of her arm before affixing the gauntlet. A last kiss on the cheek before she pulls up the hauberk and dons the helmet, helping her mount, handing her the lance, and off she goes to bring the thunder.

Shit, did I just write knightly romance?

(War is a gruesome business, mind, but this romantisation of medieval warfare would fit right in with people like Bertran de Born, who was quite convinced that war is awesome. That doesn’t reflect my view, but as an epoch piece, it would be fairly accurate.)