In the Eye of Heaven (33 page)

"You've found other chances?"

Coensar's teeth glinted. "He's a baron now. He fights for Beoran. There's no need for him to risk his neck in a tournament. He has sixty manors. Ponds of fish. A hundred mills. Sanctuaries. Hunting preserves."

"And now he's here ..." Durand said.

"Lady Damaryn has a mustache like a Heithan prince," Coensar said.

But Cassonel and the tournament explained every look Coensar had given him since they'd made camp. Guthred was his own man and slow to trust by his nature. For Coensar, it was all about Baron Cassonel. In light of this realization, Durand saw that his secrets had poisoned everything around him.

"Sir Coensar," Durand said, "I was with Radomor in Yrlac. In Ferangore. Cassonel came. He spoke treason, trying to convince Lord Radomor. It's Beoran and others. I don't know who. They are moving."

The captain hefted the stone in his palm, smiling into the dark.

His eyes glinted Durand's way, and he pointed into the green. "Do you see that?" The grass was soft and gray under the moonlight. "Captain?"

Coensar nodded at the green, and then he threw his stone. The rock soared out, and, when it landed, the field came alive. The uneven gray slope broke into thousands of round bodies, scattering like beads on a stone floor. It might have been Creation crumbling away.

Durand stared.

"Rabbits," said Coensar. "I don't know if it's the storm around this place. There're always rabbits here in moonlight."

He said nothing
more. Durand turned back toward the fire-lit camp, numb. He had made his choice and confessed. Now, there was nothing left but to allow the world to mete out the consequences. There was a little more to tell, but he felt a shaky sort of peace, like a man waking from a broken fever.

The jumble of pavilions seemed like black silhouettes clipped from the glow of bonfires, every one empty despite the hour. He wondered where Cassonel was among them. The baron would be sitting at one fire or another, in a squad of soldiers. Durand could hear laughter.

He had just begun to smile when a shape darted among the canvas alleys near Lamoric's camp, conspicuously bent and careful. Durand thought of Moryn and Cassonel and Saewin and the shapes beyond the forest edge.

Wrestling his sword free, he rushed toward the thing: an inky figure against a canvas wall.

Only a pace beyond the reach of Durand's blade, the shadow turned. Red hair flew around a face he knew. It was the woman from the stream, now wide-eyed with terror.

"God," Durand said. Quickly, he lowered the sword. "I
...
I
am sorry. I—"

"Is
it you?"
the woman faltered.

"It is. Durand. From the river. And Red Winding." He spoke gruffly, trying to think. Surely, she had followed him. How else could she come to be there with him in the middle of this accursed land?

"Yes," she gasped.

Durand looked to the sword. "I thought
...
someone so close to
..
." He realized he couldn't name his master, and concluded lamely: "I would not have frightened you for the world." He slid his sword home.

And found they stood very close, unobserved by the world, her eyes looking up at his, dark and wide. Durand stepped closer, and felt a pressure to say something. "You will watch the tournament tomorrow?"

"Yes," she said. Wary, thinking.

The scent of her hair filled his head: a flower—purple swathes on summer hills.

"How
...
how did you come to be here?" he asked.

'This place," she said. "We could not have found it for our lives. Lady Bertana ..."

She was very close now, her eyes like the flash of the moon at the bottom of wells, of an animal on the point of bolting.

He stretched out his hand, just brushing the warmth of her shoulder.

His near touch broke the spell that held her.

She gave her head a shake, looking at nothing. "May the Queen of Heaven protect you," she said, and darted off between the tents.

Durand stood alone. Dark shapes loomed around him: tents and angles. The sounds of conversation distant. The silent storm beyond. He was like one of the rabbits on the hillside, with Coensar's stone dropping out of the dark.

He closed his eyes, and heard, from among the voices throbbing in the dark, Heremund. The skald, it seemed, was already entertaining.

"All right, all right," the skald shouted.

Durand stole into the ring of bleary soldiers, feeling the heat on his face.

The men leaned in close; the skald hunkered down. "My first time, I was thirteen. She was a big girl. Skin like milk. Reddest lips. Just a scattering of tiny pimples over her forehead. I remember her lips were chapped, and there were little blades of skin like corners of parchment. A taste of iron. She stopped everything, and she knelt over me. My back was on the straw, my tunic rucked up and my breeches around my knees. She struggled her kirtle up over her head. It was this heavy, heavy wool, and narrow. I remember watching as it pulled her smock up behind it. I caught a glimpse of dimpled knees. Round stomach. Big solid thighs. The smock came off in one pull, and there she was standing over me. Big breasts low. Nipples standing in brown, spreading bruises.

"And I couldn't help myself, on my back with my breeches down. It had been standing there the whole time. I couldn't wait. And sweat gleamed over her chest and sides. And it was too late."

The circle of men erupted, rearing back. Ouen bellowed and shook his head. Berchard rolled onto his stomach, burying his face.

Coensar appeared at Durand's elbow.

Across the circle, Lamoric slipped between two men. Durand was surprised to find the young lord's eyes on him, staring across the circle, hands on his knees.

Berchard was speaking: "Heremund, my friend, if that's your first time, you're pure as fresh-fallen snow. You must go farther than that."

"Ah," said Heremund. "No. You see, it was the first time with my nose."

"What?" Berchard demanded.

"My nose. You see, she saw what was happening, and, well, she was not happy. There were breasts and a big, round arm." He shrugged. "And I was on the straw.

"She was gone, but I was on my elbows with this sticky pool of blood under my chin. My nose was running, I thought."

There were grimaces of recognition around the circle.

'That," he explained, "was the first."

"Mine was in my helmet," Ouen said, screwing up his face at the thought. The big knight's nose was little better than Heremund's.

The skald cocked his head. "You don't go in for the kissing much then, eh?"

"I wonder," said the giant, "if those dogs folk are seeing out there like a bite of cocksure bastard now and again."

"Now, now," said Berchard, waving the company to order. "So then. When was your true first time, Heremund Crook-shanks?"

The bowlegged skald Heremund mimed dismay. "Sir, as a gentleman of breeding I could hardly speak of an affair so private and personal, like. The honor of a lady is involved, after all, ain't it?"

Men fell about the fire.

But Durand's glance met Lamoric's. The young lord did not laugh as the others rolled, and there was no shaking his glare. Coensar had told him.

Among the others, Ouen was striding over the blaze. "That's enough from you, I think." His huge hands caught Heremund as if the skald were a naughty child, and the two disappeared toward the trees, leaving cheers behind.

Every face waited, and there was a crash from the branches. Ouen returned, slapping the dirt from his palms.

Durand looked up, only to find that Lamoric had disappeared. His voice was at Durand's ear in an instant.

"Come with me," hissed the young lord.

He was barred
from the light by both Lamoric and the more distant figure of Sir Coensar. So, as the awful conversation began, there was nothing but forest at his back.

"Durand, tell me why I shouldn't have you hanged here and now."

Durand said nothing.

Lamoric shoved him, and then paced before him like something in a cage.

"My captain tells me you've just come from bloody Radomor of Yrlac. Did you not think to mention it when I took you on? When we sailed for Acconel? When we stood vigil over my sister in the bloody high sanctuary of Acconel? What is wrong with you? Are you mad? Are you in his pay even now?"

Durand held his tongue even when Lamoric glared up at him.

"For God's sake!" Lamoric lunged, shoving Durand. It was half-hearted. "For God's sake
...
just tell me. Tell me what you know of my sister."

Durand took a breath. "It will not be easy to hear, Milord."

"Say it!"

Durand nodded. "Lord Radomor was told she'd been with a man called Aldoin."

"Sir Aldoin. Warrende
ll. My Alwen?" "The man was his
friend."

Lamoric spoke, not looking at Durand. "He was at the wedding. Radomor believed this?"

"He did. Sir Lamoric, he had what he took for proof." It was hard to speak.

"Proof?"

'There was a sign she made
...
to call him." "What are you saying?"

"The man, Aldoin, I know to be dead. Your sister..." He felt his face burn in the dark as he remembered catching the woman's arm and turning her back into that tower room. "I cannot say what happened, only that Radomor was angry."

" 'Angry.'"

"Aldoin drowned. They could hear him. We could hear him down the well."

They stood in silence then. Lamoric was bowed and staring at the earth. The shaking knot of his hands touched his mouth.

"Durand. I ask you, as your kin has served mine since the Gunderic and the
Cradle.
Do you believe it? This proof?
Do you believe it?"

Durand forced his eyes to meet his master's gaze.

"She confessed, Lord."

14. Where Dance the Shad
ows

A
s the Heavens rolled above them, every company sank slowly into a drained and shaky silence. Alone, at first, Sir Agryn prayed First Twilight when the coming dawn silvered the eastern sky. Soon, the others joined him, watching the cool glow swelling in the Heavens above the castle. Even Badan could not resist the call to his knees. Agryn continued his murmured prayer until the needle of Heaven's Eye split the horizon, and he could stand to give thanks for the dawn.

Durand kept his hands busy with horses and harness, knowing he was a traitor awaiting his sentence. His time with these men was finished, but still he checked long limbs and mended cinches. He curried twitching flanks. It kept him awake.

While the men waited out the night, villagers built a reviewing stand overlooking the green, hammering, at first, in darkness. The knights would fight where Coensar's rabbits had scattered only a few hours before. The path the castle women had walked would divide the lists, north from south.

With the coming of the dawn, every conroi creaked into motion. Belted knights yawned and shivered like boys. Grooms threw parti-colored trappers over the heads of war-horses. Men struggled into hauberks and surcoats. Shield-bearers raced with forgotten shields and battle helms. Soon, the whole company struggled out to the lists, half to the north and half to the south. They were tired, and one man among them would die.

As Durand passed lances and shields between the crowded horses, he wondered. Each man that reached could be the one.

No one spoke of shirking the strange duty that had been imposed upon them. They must fight.

As Durand slipped through the close-packed horses to check the crupper-strap on Sir Coensar's mount, all the rustling and muttering subsided. Looking up from the shadows, Durand spotted a knight in black and silver facing the captain.

Baron Cassonel of Damaryn sat in a tall fighting saddle. His expression gave no hint of his emotions. "Sir Coensar." "It is."

"It has been a long time, I think."

The others were watching; no one spoke.

"A very long time indeed."