Firethorn (15 page)

Sire Alcoba clapped the father on the shoulder and walked him away, with a nod to Sire Galan, saying, “Perhaps you know my wife's cousin? She married Sire Gambade dam Caracoler by Sagitta of Ardor some five years past …”

As she was led away, the daughter turned her head, not enough for another peep, but enough to show her profile: a delicate gem.

Then Sire Galan turned and looked at me, still wearing his smile.

“Let's to the cobbler,” he said to me. “Winter is setting in and you must be shod.”

He would do the same for his horse.

That evening I washed out my old headcloth in a bucket of costly water. The shoemaker had made me wipe my feet before he would take my measure, and offered me nothing to clean them with, not so much as a cup of water to rinse them, so my old linen had to do. The more mud I'd wiped off, the dirtier I'd felt. I hadn't thought to be ashamed of my feet before. My last pair of shoes wore to pieces in the Kingswood, well into winter. I had endured the cold and the chilblains until, slowly, I'd cobbled myself a new pair of feet with soles of horn and toes tough as roots, numb to cold and impervious to stony ground. Now I saw how my feet were splayed, knobbed, cracked, roughened, how dirt had gone under the skin, out of reach of a rag and spit. Unfit for shoes. A drudge's hooves.

Nevertheless, I had two pair of shoes now. The tough brogans would be ready in a few days. The other pair, slippers of red and black leather stitched in a diamond pattern, had caught Sire Galan's eye; he paid an astounding price without so much as dickering. I wore them inside the tent while I hung up my old headcloth to dry. How they pinched! The leather would stretch or my feet would be crushed—there could be no other accommodation between the shoes and me.

I was by myself for a few moments in the tent. I could go nowhere without an escort; even to visit the cesspit I had to take Spiller and Noggin with me, to guard each end of one of the great planks that straddled the trench. There were gangs of boys who would tip the plank as you squatted upon it and drop you into the dung.

This pinched too. And I was not the only one who felt squeezed too tight. When we got back from market, Sire Galan had told Spiller, “If she's not with me, you'd best stick to her like a burr. If she's lost again, I'll take it out of your hide with something worse than a flogging.”

I heard Spiller mutter that he had no quarrel with me, but he'd not be saddled by a mare.

“And you're an ill-fitting old boot,” I told him. But in truth I had no wish to venture past the clan's tents on my own, being quite convinced it was not safe.

'd wanted to see more of the world; here it was, the whole world, so it seemed to me. And what a brave glittering sight, what a hubbub and clamor—what a stink! Even the wind from the sea could not sweep the stench away.

The clans had come to these barren hills and planted a forest of tents leafed with gaudy canvas and leather and blooming with banners. The men were pent up so close in this false forest that they crawled upon each other like wasps. Pent up and idle, idle and restless, they waited for the king to let loose the swarm. In this wood there were but two kinds of game: men and women. Men were hunted on the tourney field. Women were hunted everywhere.

And Hazard Chance was worshiped everywhere, because the cataphracts and their men would wager on anything: who would win a tourney; which stallion would master all the others in the corral; whether a certain dame was with child or no; if one drudge could beat another in a footrace across the Marchfield and back; if a manhound could best a bear; whether a particular flea would jump to your jack or your bagboy if they both sat still as could be.

So it was that Sire Galan made a wager with Sire Alcoba that night, and the next morning I heard about it from Spiller, who had it from Sire Alcoba's jack Rowney, who'd overheard them conversing in this manner:

Sire Alcoba says, “As a wife she would be too cheap—her father spoke truly, she has no dowry at all—but as a concubine she's too dear. He sets a high price on her virtue.”

Sire Galan says, “And you already have a wife.”

“Indeed, one too many.”

“Are you so taken with the maiden then?”

“I like her well enough, but not at the price,” says Sire Alcoba.

Spiller and I were on our way to buy water with some of Sire Galan's littlest coins. Noggin should have done it, but he was as likely to bring back saltwater as fresh; he was born to be cheated. The Sun had come up in a miserly mood, giving us rays of lead instead of gold. Rain dripped from low and leaky clouds.

I told Spiller they must have been talking of the pearl-fleshed girl they'd met in the market, draped on her father's arm. I never thought to see a man of the Blood play the merchant—and he did it well, for the more he'd belittled the maiden, the more flawless she looked.

Spiller hadn't seen her. “But listen,” he said, “I'm getting to the best part of my tale.”

So Sire Galan says, “I wager I could have her maidenhead for free.”

And Sire Alcoba says, “I'll take the wager. She'll never do it. She's too modest.”

“Not so modest, I think.”

“Then she's a fool—chastity is her only wealth.”

“If she's a fool, so much the better. And if she's not, I hope she's cunning indeed. A cunning woman will know how to be a maid again by morning, and no one the wiser except the three of us—and perhaps the man who buys her. But he'll not be much cheated, for she'll be more eager after I have done with her.”

“How would you prove you've plucked her?” says Sire Alcoba.

“Proof? What proof? My word on it should satisfy you.”

“Yet I'd find it hard to believe if I didn't witness it with my own eyes.”

“Do you mean to call me a liar even before I've spoken?” says Sire Galan, his hand on his sword hilt.

There was a pause. Spiller said if it had lasted a few moments longer, it would have ended with steel drawn and then blood drawn.

Sire Alcoba says—with a little laugh—“No, no. Of course not. Of course I don't doubt your word.”

“It's well you say so.”

Another pause, and Sire Alcoba says, “What shall we wager, then? Your black courser against my gray?”

Sire Galan: “You shall have to do better. I already stake my life on this wager. First, she'll be well guarded, and then, if her father comes to learn I've tupped her, he'll try to gore me. Besides, Semental is worth ten of your gray, or you would not always be pleading to ride him.”

“Spiller, enough!” I said.

“But Rowney told me more. Don't you wish to hear it?”

Oh, Spiller relished good gossip; he sauced and served it well, too well. I looked him in the face, searching for malice toward me, but found none. Did he truly have such an empty vault under his thatch of hair as to think I might enjoy this tale?

“No, I've heard enough.”

“But wait—it's too rich!” Laughter burst out of him. “Sire Alcoba added Rowney to the stakes, and all his upkeep. Sire Galan shall have two jacks!”

“If you don't hold your tongue,” I told Spiller, “he'll have no jack at all.”

He thought I was joking, but when he saw I wasn't, there was a long silence, sullen on his part, bitter on mine.

We bought water. I tasted it first: one cask was too muddy, another too sandy. A man claimed his water came all the way from the mountains. I swore it did not, but it was still the sweetest to be found.

On the way back to the tent, I thought of how Spiller and I would be harnessed together, for a long while perhaps; I should make amends or he might spit in my food as he did Sire Rodela's. And I had no reason to take affront at him or at his tale—none that he could imagine, anyway.

So I spoke agreeably to him and asked him to tell me the rest, and there was little left to tell except that Sire Galan had three days and four nights to accomplish the feat or lose the wager, and one of those nights had passed already. And Spiller had no doubt he would win, no doubt at all.

The Crux also made a wager. He challenged the clan of Lynx to a tourney of courtesy. It was to be an amiable battle between neighbors, a skirmish fought with mock weapons. The terms were agreed: firstly, one charge with lances of unseasoned pine (easily snapped, and even if the haft didn't break, the point would do little harm, being a three-pronged crownackle made of tin); secondly, combat with oaken swords. They staked nothing more than a dinner on the battle. The losers would feast the winners that same evening.

Sire Erial, a cataphract with more bluster than beard, complained to Sire Galan that it was not a mortal tourney, with unbated weapons. “Does the Crux think we're afraid to fight?” he asked. “Or has he lost his stomach for gambling, that he sets stakes so trifling?”

“Oh, hardly,” said Sire Galan. “He's lost his taste for his cook's dishes, and plans to dine at another's expense tonight.”

But I heard Cook say that the king had forbidden mortal tourneys, as he had forbidden duels, to save his men for battle; and besides, his master was never born such a fool that he'd risk more than a dinner on untried men. And Cook must have made his own reckoning. He had two calves already turning on spits for surety if we should lose.

I sat cross-legged on the bed watching Sire Galan don his armor all morning long, first the padded red garments, then the mail and plate. He was cock-a-whoop over the battle to come, sure he'd be a victor. I knew little enough of tourneys, being raised in the Dame's household, but I did know that a man could die even in a tourney of courtesy. A lance might catch just so on the helmet and break his neck, or more likely he'd be unhorsed and trampled. Just as clear as I saw him standing before me, with Spiller fastening the latches that held his gorget to his breastplate, I could see him cut and in need of tending, or else past need of anything, mortally wounded. And yet I could hardly wish him to win on the tourney field, as it would give him another weapon in his siege against that maid's virtue—her walls would tumble for certain.

Sire Rodela brought out a wooden box and opened it. Three tourney swords in scabbards rested inside. They may have been of wood, but once unsheathed they shone brighter than steel from the silver leaf that covered them. They were heavier than real swords, being weighted with lead in the pommel and in a channel along the blade so that a man might build up his strength; though they couldn't cut like steel or thrust like steel, they made fine cudgels.

Sire Galan tried one and then another, running his hand down the swords' edges. He nicked his thumb on the second and grinned. “Rift has chosen,” he said, and strapped the sheath to his baldric. He looked up from under his brows and saw me wince.

“Oh, you look so grave,” he said, laughing. “No fear. I'll bring you trophies if you'll give me a kiss for luck.” He leaned over me and claimed his kiss—he took it, I did not give it. I was as ready to curse him as wish him luck, with that other wager on my mind. My fear for him was sullied by fear for myself, for what should become of me if he won or lost; my desire was marred by anger, so that even his smile and his touch came unwelcome. I stayed mute. There was no way to speak of his wager, and no other words could find their way out.

The tourney field was down the east-of-north road beyond the queen's encampment. It was a valley surrounded by low hills, a stretch of scrub grass and gorse rooted in soil so meager the rock bones showed through here and there. Where the ground had been churned into mud, drudges had spread sand and straw for better footing. There were two small enclosures on the field for the jacks, so each could be at hand to tend to his master's wants and weapons and—if his master went down—dart into the melee to pull him out. The fences were made of reed mats strung between posts; they seemed solid to a horse, but the jacks knew how flimsy they were.

I had expected more splendor. But promising or not, this ground was consecrated; as Wend claims pastures, and Eorõe the plowed land, Rift has dominion over the fields of war. The god's priests were there before us, setting smudge pots burning to mark the boundaries of the battle. A warrior driven past those boundaries must yield to his opponent. The smoke smeared more gray over a gray day, but it smelled sweet, for they'd smothered the fires with candlebark.

Canopies hung with colors were set about the hills around the field to shelter the Blood. A good many had come to watch, and mudfolk too, since tourneys were the principal amusement in the long days spent waiting for the army to assemble and set forth.

I went with some of the other drudges who could steal time from their duties. Fleetfoot and I sat together on a rise overlooking the field, perched on a boulder with my cloak over our heads to keep out the never-ending drizzle. Noggin sat nearby, wrapped in an old sack. Since Spiller was needed on the field, the bagboy had been told to look after me. He was as near a nitwit as made no difference, which was agreeable to me. If I had to be on one end of a halter, I'd rather be holding it than wearing it.

I had my eye on Sire Galan. Even in his armor, even in a crowd, even at a distance, I knew him. Of course his gyrfalcon helmet marked him, as well as his painted shield, but after all those days on the road, I could have picked him out just by the way he sat his horse. He was riding the black stallion Semental.

Now he was taking his place in the battle line, to the right of the Crux, wearing his green banner. Sire Rodela was just to his left, for each cataphract rode with his armiger on his shield side. They made a line of thirty-four mounted warriors by my count, but by their reckoning, as always, seventeen. The cataphracts were armed with tourney lances and swords and armored in their second skins of mail and forged iron. Their horses wore bards of sturdy boiled leather marked with godsigns and patterns, and cushions stuffed with straw hung before their chests to guard against lance thrusts and collisions.

All in all, the cataphracts' horses were better protected than the armigers, who wore such motley armor as they could afford. What use was it to an armiger to be called Sire This or Sire That if all his house could provide for him was an old brigandine lined with scales made from horses' hooves? Most armigers are younger sons; perhaps their families could better afford them dead than alive. Sire Rodela's house may have been poor but it was proud. He flaunted a mail shirt, greaves, and a leather helmet strengthened with metal ribs. In some self-mock he'd fastened a lamb's tail to the helmet, saying he would wear it until he'd taken his honor out of pawn by shearing an enemy as he'd been shorn by his master.

The warriors of Lynx lined up near our vantage on the hillside, bearing orange banners. The cataphracts rested their lances upright between saddle and thigh. Each studied the man across from him in the other line. In a tourney of courtesy, it was customary for a cataphract to ride against his own kind in the charge, lance against lance, and for armiger to contend against armiger, for the honor of facing an equal in weapons and armor. In the fracas to follow there would be no such distinction.