In the Eye of Heaven (34 page)

Cassonel regarded Coensar with a dispassionate stare.

"And you are in Hesperand once more?" said Coensar. "It has been seven winters."

"I did not intend it," the baron said. "My lord wished haste."

"How fares the Duke of Beoran?" "Well enough."

"Good. I wouldn't wish him ill. I've my own lord to follow now."

"This Red Knight," Cassonel said. "Yes. The Knight in Red."

Lamoric touched his helm in mocking salute. Coensar changed directions.

"You were caught on the road?"

"I had no intention of coming here."

"At least the weather is fine." Coensar smiled. "How does the wind blow in Ferangore? Old Duke Ailnor fares well, does he? Or did you miss the old man? It can be hard tracking a man down. You can go years without catching sight."

If Cassonel was surprised, he hid it well. He did shoot a glance to Durand where he stood among the cinches and stirrup leathers. "The Duke of Yrlac is hale, Sir Coensar."

"I had heard rumors. His son ..."

"The duke is hale. And you may find that he outlives some of us here."

"God willing," said Coensar. "You fight on the north?" "Aye."

"I think it will not be long till we meet once more ".Cassonel said and led his men to the southern company.

Durand felt a hand grip his shoulder. He looked up and saw Coensar grinning down. "That, I enjoyed." And Durand took some comfort that he and the captain, at least, would not part on bad terms.

As Cassonel and his retainers took up their place in the line across the mist-steaming yard, nine long shadows fell over the battleground, stilling the men. Into this silence, horns brayed from the reviewing stand. Durand winced at the shiver they sent through his bones. The Lady of the Bower and her handmaidens looked out over the chaos of pennons and horses, then they mounted the rough steps into the stand and took their places—nine silhouettes against the green canvas of the stand's back wall.

There were others in the stand: travelers lost in Hesperand. His Stream Maid must be there as well, somewhere behind the green canvas awnings—a woman he had simply let walk away from him. He had not even asked her name.

Again, there was fanfare.

"The Lady of the Bower'welcomes the peers of the realm to this festival in honor of the Maid of Spring."

From his position among the horses, Durand made out warriors in green surcoats. Each man carried the coiling horn of some fantastic beast. It occurred to him that, although they looked every inch a fighting man, each must be a herald to the Lady of the Bower. He wondered who they were, and how they had come to be in Bower Mead. A graybeard herald was speaking.

'To further honor the Maid, her ladyship enjoins all free men who are of age and not infirm to take part in a display of skill at arms to begin before this hour has passed." He narrowed his eyes and set a fist on one lean hip. "Let no man shirk his chance to demonstrate his devotion to the Maiden of Spring."

He raised the coiling horn. Silver fittings glinted against the dark curl. "The next blast upon my horn will mark the beginning of the combat." With this, the herald bowed sharply and dismissed them all to prepare.

"Well, you others, have you heard him?" said Coensar. "A surprise, eh?"

Durand caught himself staring up from among the horse's arses, gaping like a fish. Hesperand was an old duchy, and this tournament predated knights and shield-bearers both. There had only been fighting men. There he was, standing in mud and shirtsleeves, expected to climb on horseback and fight armored men with real blades.

Guthred grunted: "I'm bloody infirm."

Lamoric twitched around, his red battle helm oddly menacing.

"The rest of you," he said. "No excuses." "Right," said Guthred. "You're on horseback if I've got to tie you there. Get to it." And the crowd broke.

Every man of age meant twenty-one or more, and rank didn't matter—shield-bearers and grooms charged in a sudden storm.

Durand wove through the anxious mob. He'd planned to keep out of sight, and leave as quickly as he could. Now, he was hunting up tack and saddles to join the battle line.

"Hurry, you drove of goats," barked Guthred, "or you'll fight as you stand!" A horse screamed—the wrong horse— and the man spun. "Get out of there, you daft bastard! You think Lamoric wants you bashing around on his good bloody palfrey?" One of the grooms ducked a hasty backhand.

Durand rooted his hauberk and shield from the packs and hauled a good sturdy cob from among the horses. The brute was no warhorse, but it looked strong enough.

"The riding saddles, you stupid whoreson," Guthred was shouting. "How many fighting saddles you reckon we've got? Throw an extra cinch round."

With a few quick slips of strap and buckle, Durand urged the cob to the line. He would be lucky if the brute didn't break his neck running away. Around him, the companies took shape, reinforced by scores of raw men on bare horses. Wide-eyed beasts threw their heads. Grooms in gambesons hunkered over saddlebows, clutching spare lances.

Coensar was speaking. "—a second rank. Or third. And tight. Knee to knee. There shouldn't be room to drop an apple between us when we're riding out."

Coensar's head swiveled as he looked over the crowd. Lamoric, beside his captain in line, sat low, his battle helm red as raw flesh. After the night before, Durand wondered what turn the man's thoughts had taken. The helm neatly masked any trace.

Durand was left riding at the man's back. If he had never seen Ferangore, this might have been his chance to win favor with the young lord. Now, though, he owed Lamoric a debt, and would throw his whole will behind it.

A hairy fist clamped his knee. Guthred peered up at him. There was a spear.

"Here boy. You asleep? Even you won't do much damage without a bloody lance."

Durand took the spear.

"Point it at their lot," Guthred added, helpfully. "And move this bag of bones." He slapped the cob's rump. "I've got to have a word." He barged his way past Durand and through the close-packed horses toward the front.

There was movement among the heralds.

There were a lot of bare blades in the hands of scared men. Durand swallowed. A night without sleep had skimmed his face over with grease. His mouth was dry right to the back of his throat, and, somewhere along the line, he had missed his last chance for a piss.

The cob shifted its weight, side to side.

"Durand?"

Behind him, red-haired Cerlac rode at the head of a straggling column, looking more like a knight-at-arms now in mail and surcoat.

"Your chance, eh?"

"I suppose."

The man seemed to notice something.

"Hells. Are you riding bare-headed, then?"

"I'm lucky I've still got my hauberk." There were plenty of men on the verge of riding against lances wearing nothing more than quilted canvas.

"I reckon I can manage another lucky stroke for a comrade at arms. Here." The young knight called back down the line behind him, and soon a boy ran up, holding a helmet over his head like a plattered roast at a feast. Cerlac plucked it from the boy's hands.

"It's a bit rough." The thing looked like a hammered iron bowl, but there was a broad nasal bar to blunt any slash across the eyes. "The webbing's still good, and the iron's sound enough."

He held it out, and Durand gladly took the thing. "You're generous."

"Now you've got a fighting chance, eh?"

"I'll do my best to get it back to you in one piece." Durand put the thing on his head, blinking at the sharp smell and the unfamiliar weight.

"I owe you my life after that bucket last night. Good luck."

Durand touched the brow of the helm in salute. He felt free. Cerlac nodded and rode for his place down the line.

Suddenly, Durand was jostled. Coensar was bobbing and twisting in his saddle, looking up and down their line. Durand saw pointing across the lists, then Coensar was shouting back. "All right, you lot Back them out." There were moans of confusion. "Get them out of line!"

On the field, the heralds were already tramping out to get things started. But the conroi wallowed back, tearing itself loose of its astonished battalion.

Coensar stood in his stirrups. "Follow me. We haven't much time!" They rode, swinging round the whole field. In the midst of the enemy line, Cassonel, in his black and silver gear, stood in his stirrup irons, watching them come, incredulous. In a moment, they would join Cassonel's battalion, losing Coensar the chance he had bled for.

Only as Coensar led their conroi jostling into the northern company, did Durand see th
e explanation: The heir of Morn
away had taken up a place in the ranks opposite Lamoric's men. On opposite sides, Moryn would have had his chance at Lamoric. Now, the man was forced to be an ally.

Arranging it had cost Sir Coensar dearly.

They settled into the line, horses twitching. Their erstwhile allies stared back in astonishment.

The Lady's heralds walked out into the lists. One of the men passed down the ranks in front of them. It would be any moment now.

There was a heavy ripple running through the opposing line: more jockeying. Men and horses jostled to make way for a new conroi, and a sober Baron Cassonel emerged in the front rank. The man regarded Coensar steadily. The Baron of Damaryn would give Coensar his chance.

The green-clad heralds took up places at each of the four corners of the field. Across the way, Durand spotted red-haired Cerlac who shrugged back with a smile. Now they would fight against each other. Durand checked to be sure that his sword was free in its scabbard. He touched the pommel of his misericord dagger. He tried to find the balancing point of the lance. Each breath snapped his throat dry as parchment.

Durand could still not see into the reviewing stand, but a shadow had risen against the canvas. The long figure's arm was raised. The heralds noted it as well, each of the four raising a horn to his lips.

Horses stamped. Durand gripped lance and shield.

There was a wispy something in the Lady's hand, and—as soon as Durand had seen it—it fell.

The line surged into motion with the blare of trumpets.

The melee was
a wild and furious thing. After the long night under the silver moon, the climbing Eye of Heaven set every streaming color ablaze.

For hours, Durand fought to stay with Lamoric's conroi and not to get himself cut from the group and taken. There were collisions and screams and pitched battles as conrois clashed. Men fell and ran. In the confusion, blows clattered in from wild angles. Men bobbed in and out. As the bright Eye climbed, Durand took a lance against his shield and uncounted slapping blows over mailed limbs. As far as he knew, no blow of his own had so much as bruised another man.

In the day's third hour, a lance jabbed big Ouen from his horse, but Lamoric and Berchard together swooped down. In an instant, the giant knight was flying over the field, suspended between two horses with his feet churning the air.

Durand and the whole conroi swept in to cover their retreat from the lists. The big man hit the ground beyond the palings, tumbling from the hands that had hoisted him out of harm's way, and laughing as he rolled to a halt among a crowd of startled shield-bearers.

It was while Ouen tumbled that things went wrong. Coensar was howling an order. 'To me, to me! Reform! Reform!" From the churning, wheeling chaos of the melee, another conroi had broken loose. In racing for the edge of the lists, Lamoric's men were strung out across two-dozen paces with the slowest horses and poorest riders straggling and exposed. Enemies leapt to seize the advantage.

Durand, on his stolid cob, barely had time to spin as men and horses sleeted through the fragmented lines all around him. One grinning villain picked him out, rushing forward behind the long blade of a lance. The attacking point howled up Durand's shield, as his own lance shot the gap between his attacker's horse and bridle, wrenching ten feet of spinning lance from Durand's fist

Lamoric's conroi flexed, twisting like a pit bear—blades, armor, and lances lashing to drive off any new attacker.

Suddenly safe, Durand shook a stung hand. His lance was a sharp angle in the mud, ashwood snapped like a reed. He felt blood slick in his ear. With the rest of the conroi bristling, there was room for Durand to slip out, pull himself together, and collect another weapon.