Firethorn (16 page)

The tourney commenced with ceremony. The First of Lynx met the First of Crux in the center of the field, and each gripped a fighting cock by its feet. The birds flapped and lunged, eager to get free, eager to do battle. A priestess of Rift rode out to them, a crone in a red robe and a hat with a great prow and cloth unfurled like sails on either side. It was her duty to shed the first blood that day, and as she sacrificed the cocks, the smell of burning feathers drifted toward us.

The warriors began to shout at each other across the field, great hoarse wordless roars, and they clattered shield upon weapon. They raised this tumult to make their own blood run hot and to chill the blood of the enemy, but it stirred me too, and I found a grin stretched upon my face, the same wolf's grin I saw on other faces.

Silence fell for a moment. The priestess nodded and the two lines of men began to move, as the warriors kicked their horses into a jarring trot that set the pennants bobbing above their heads. The horses gathered speed and the lances shuddered. The cataphracts stood in the stirrups, their weight well forward for the thrust, and when they judged they were close enough they brought their lances down and couched them on the notches in their shields. It seemed impossible they could hit any mark, let alone one so small as a visor—yet how could they miss, with the riders galloping stirrup to stirrup? I foresaw such mayhem when the lines smashed together that I covered my eyes. But then I had to look, and somehow the men rode past each other, and as they passed some struck and most missed. The lines shattered. I felt the sound as much as heard it: the crack of lances breaking came like lightning over the bone-rattling thunder of hooves, and over this rose a greater din from the warriors and spectators. They opened their throats and out came roars and bellows and shrieks, a terrible harsh music only Rift could find pleasing.

Five men were unhorsed—no, six. Their jacks ran out to help them mount. Two had fallen when their mounts collided. A horse thrashed on the ground, grievously injured.

Sire Galan galloped through the charge unscathed. He was near our end of the field when he turned Semental around. His lance had splintered, which meant he'd struck true. He threw it down and drew his sword and rode back toward the melee.

I screamed a warning, though Sire Galan couldn't hear me. He was entangled in a knot of men, only a few green banners amongst the orange ones. He went down and I lost sight of him. His horse reared up with an empty saddle. He was under all those hooves and a tonnage of man and horse and metal that no armor could withstand.

Time was in spate. There was no reckoning how long he was out of my sight. Not long, perhaps, but time enough to imagine a hundred ways a man can lose his life. I'd begrudged him a kiss and now I rued my stinginess. Suppose it was true that Hazard favored me, and because I withheld a kiss Chance turned her back on him? I'd give him all the luck in the world now, if it were not too late.

Somehow Sire Galan mounted again, though he was hemmed in on all sides and weighted down by full armor. His wooden sword began to rise and fall, and the serene silver mask of his helmet made him look as matter of fact as a man cutting brush on a hillside. I found myself on my feet, shouting, and I sat down and reined in my tongue.

Fleetfoot nudged and pointed, and there was Sire Pava, unhorsed, at our end of the field. His opponent watched from horseback, and when Sire Pava scrambled to his feet, he knocked him down again with a wallop from the flat of his sword. Sire Pava landed hard, the breath driven out of him. He looked helpless as a turtle flipped on its back. I jeered and Fleetfoot hooted and made the rude sign for a coward, holding up his fist and waggling his little finger like a dog's tail. We knew we were safe from Sire Pava up on the hillside. His helmet had been knocked askew, and he fumbled at its fastenings. He'd get no help from his armiger, Divine Narigon, who was brawling with the other man's armiger nearby.

I looked to Sire Galan and he was still on his horse, still tangled in that group of struggling men. They'd moved as if in one body across the field until they were hard upon the boundary, and each strove to keep his horse inside the ring of smudge pots and to push another out.

Meanwhile Sire Pava's jack, Gaunt, ran to help his master, but the cataphract of Lynx drove him off like a man herding a calf from horseback. Then the cataphract rode over to Sire Pava, where he lay on the ground, and, with nudges and twitches of the reins, he bade his great horse step daintily over him, so that the stallion's forelegs were on either side of Sire Pava's shoulders (which sight amazed us, as horses don't like men under their bellies), and Sire Pava yielded. I shouted to the horse, “Piss on him, piss on him!” and Fleetfoot and I shrieked with laughter until we were winded.

I looked back to see Sire Galan cut a man from the pack, using his stallion, a hand taller than the other man's horse, to force his opponent sideways step by step. The two men leaned toward each other, striking blows that surely must have clattered like hail on the metal of their armor, until Sire Galan drove the other warrior past the smudge pots. Spiller showed himself eager enough then—where had he been hiding when his master was down among the hooves? He should be beaten for shirking, the coward!—running up to collect the man's sword and banners for trophies. Sire Galan trotted off to take another man unawares and I was on my feet again.

Though it was a mock battle, it was a long one, long enough for spectators to stroll about arm in arm to pass the time of day; long enough for the vendors of savories to make their rounds (having no money we were obliged to feed on the smells), and a ragged Abstinent to come begging, who was pelted with coins and stones. Long enough for a rumormonger to sing a ditty he'd made up on the instant about the tourney, praising one man for the elegance and clarity of his form and ridiculing another. I recognized the men he named, but not their deeds, for they were embroidered all over with flowery titles. In the arcane language of combat—a language unknown to me—every attack and counter had its name.

No rumormonger sang of the bravest deed on the field that day. Ev was waiting down by the boundary with the other horseboys and horsemasters of the clan, ready to take a spare mount onto the field if needed. He saw what Fleetfoot and I had missed: Sire Pava's stallion was galloping crazed around the field, likely to trip on his reins and break a leg. Ev was single-minded, and the gods admired it and let him run straight to his goal, underfoot of the horses and past the swinging swords. He caught the stallion's reins and hung on, and after he'd been tossed in the air and dragged along the ground, the horse slowed and stopped, bowing his massive head. Ev was too slight to hold a warhorse with his weight; he barely reached the stallion's withers. He must have calmed him with his voice, a voice the horse had heard since the day he was foaled. (Ev spoke readily to horses; around people he was shy.) There were splinters from a broken lance caught between the stallion's flank and barding, and as he ran, the splinters had been driven deep into his side. The horsemaster, Harien, was quick as a toad's tongue to appear when the danger was over and the boasting began, but it was Ev who carried the scars away that day: two long gouges on his legs from the flints seeded everywhere in the chalky soil.

There came a time during the battle when I had been so buffeted by fear and glee and fear and exhilaration and fear again that I wished only for it to end. How is a tourney decided, when weapons are blunt and armor is strong? One man leaves the field with a broken shinbone, another because his head is ringing like a bell with an iron clapper. A cataphract who yields skulks away and takes his armiger with him. After a while even the strongest man tires of lifting a sword, whether it be of wood or steel. Little by little, man by man, the battle wears out.

Or sometimes, when the king is watching (for he likes to know the stuff and substance of his army), he'll blow his hunting horn and toss a metal cup upon the field, and the man who catches it gets to drink victory. I hadn't known the king was there until his horn sounded and the cup went glinting and tumbling through the air. The Crux caught it easily, so it must have been aimed at him; but I couldn't tell that one clan or the other had fairly won, being ignorant of the arts of Rift Warrior.

But the king is always right. When the tallies were made, the clan of Crux had more trophies and the best of the wager. Rift's priestess filled the victory cup, and when the men of our clan had drained it dry, they galloped their horses around the tourney field, riding uphill toward the spectators as if they meant to run them down, then turning at the last moment and chasing downhill again, whooping all the while. The drudges scattered before their charge, and I ran with the rest, half laughing, half terrified. The Blood stayed unmoved under their awnings. I supposed they'd seen this many times before.

Before one of those shelters, I saw Sire Galan rein in his stallion so hard he set him back on his haunches. He swung his leg over the high pommel of the saddle and jumped down lightly, as if he were not wearing three-quarters of a hundredweight of plate and mail. He took off his helmet and bowed. That maiden of Ardor was standing under the canopy, of course, and her father with her. I was too far away to see her face, but I did see Sire Galan give her a sword he'd taken from a Lynx. He bowed to her, to her father, to her again—it put me in mind of the manor dovecote, how in spring the males puff up their feathers and strut and bob while the females go on pecking.

Fleetfoot saw me looking and started to tease, “Sire Pava has bet against him also, did you know? So Sire Galan is sure to win, because everyone knows Sire Pava and Luck don't get along.”

I knew what he meant; there were many in the village still in the habit of calling me by my old name. I said, “Fleetfoot, boy, if you have anything to wager—and I know you don't—I advise you to save your coin. Sire Galan presumes too much on his Luck. He may find she doesn't favor him in this.“ Oh, I bragged, but I was the only one cut by my wit. I wished I had the power Sire Galan claimed for me of being his luck. I'd bring him this good fortune: that the maid send him away tonight with a no that could not be mistaken for a yes even by the most handsome, amorous, cocksure pricks-man in all the Marchfield.

Fleetfoot had heard of Sire Galan's little wager, which meant that any day now the rumormongers would be making up songs about it and singing them in the market. Every wagging tongue added to Sire Galan's danger. If the girl's father found out, he'd likely challenge him to a duel—though for such a dishonorable wager, Sire Galan deserved to be set upon in the dark of night by varlets with staves and given a bad drubbing. If he won his bet, it would call for a mortal fight for certain. Maybe the clan Firsts would put a stop to it before a feud could start; or maybe they'd be the last to find out, along with the girl's father, for who would want to spoil such a fine tale before it could be told?

After the horses were seen to, Sire Galan's men crowded into the tent, even the foot soldiers. Sire Galan could not stop grinning as Spiller and Sire Rodela helped remove his armor. His curls were flattened to his head and dark with sweat, and on his cheeks I saw the impress of helmet straps and rivets of the visor. His men talked all at once, asking one another if they'd seen this act of bravery or that of cowardice. The close air smelled of sweat and horse and ale and damp.

Sire Galan asked me, “Did you see I struck off a man's helmet with my lance?”

I said, “No, the charge was such a muddle. I saw your lance was broken, though.”

“I broke it on his head. I took half his ear off.”

Spiller spoke up. “I saw it, Sire. It's a wonder he kept his seat.”

“I saw it too,” said Noggin.

And Sire Rodela said, “You should have aimed lower, then you could have knocked him from his horse.”

Sire Galan ignored him. “Did you see me drive a man off the field?“ Again, it was me he asked.

“I did. You took his sword as a trophy,” I said. “And where is it? I should like to see it.”

He took off his padded red shirt and sat on the cot so Spiller and Sire Rodela could pull off his leggings. I crossed my arms and asked again, though I knew the answer well enough. “Where's the sword?”

Spiller sniggered and Sire Rodela smiled his crooked smile. The other men grew quiet.

Sire Galan stood up, naked. Iron plate stops a blade's edge, but the force of a blow will still leave its mark. There were red weals all over his body. He would soon be piebald with bruises. Yet he didn't seem to feel pain. He was drunk on the battle: his eyes shone, his voice was too loud, and his skin had a fine flush everywhere. I judged he would feel it tomorrow, when his blood stopped charging and his heart galloping.

He said to Spiller, “Fetch me my shirt and hose,” and then to me, almost on the same breath, “Why, I gave it away.” He smiled, but his brows were drawn together. “Did you think I'd forget my promise? I have a better trophy for you.”

He found his gauntlet in the pile of armor and pulled from it a small orange bundle. I untied the knot. The cloth was a Lynx banner with a golden cat's eye embroidered as a house crest. Inside its folds lay part of a man's ear: pale, resilient, curved inward like a shell along one smooth edge, ragged and red on the other. There was mud in the hollows. I threw the banner and ear down on the bed and stepped back. The men crowded round to look at it, raising a clamor.