Bodyplate

His horse and himself are both heavily laden with armour of a most elaborate kind, but quite fanciful; for instance, there is a small spade-shaped shield on his gorget containing the three lilies, a lion’s head on his breastplate, and a scorpion or lobster on his bodyplate, beneath which he wears a briganture of mail.

The men and women at the picnic were plastered into limited ways of acting, with limited body movements. It was as if they moved with plastic bodyplates in front of them, and the children were being herded into the bodyplates of learned behavior being passed down to them through their parents. Watching the men, the women, the children, I imagined them waking each morning and fitting into their bodyplates.

On the other side of the square, the Museo Histórico is a modest affair, with just a couple of rooms — the first room devoted to the aborigines and the Conquest (with what is purported to be the original bodyplate of a Spanish conquistador) and the second to local people who distinguished themselves either during the guerrilla campaign or since.

Almost as an afterthought, he reached up to check that the camera lens in the left shoulder-pad of his Kevlar bodyplate wasn’t obstructed, then adjusted his helmet mike. It wasn’t a new experience for them go into battle with each man hooked up to Ops via combined video and audio links.

Inside it had rows upon rows of armour. Some rows of helmets, some of platelegs, bodyplates, gauntlets and boots.

There was blood in his armour, too. He could feel it sticking to the inside of his bodyplate like a second skin.