Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
The mounted archery started the Trials.
Each rider was to take the circuit in the order by the lot drawn the previous evening.
Six targets, set at varying heights along the inner wall of the arena, had to be hit at a canter or faster.
A clean hit scored one point. A miss scored nothing.
Maximum score: six. The order was posted on a board at the eastern arch, and when the herald read it out, Verna noted that Kalen drew seventh position, which meant she would watch six riders go before her.
She wasn't sure if that was good or bad, but decided it was good. Kalen worked better when she had something to respond to.
The first rider was the Velmart boy.
He was eager, which was both his strength and his problem.
He took the circuit too fast for the opening targets, which gave him very little time to settle and aim.
His first arrow skipped off the edge of the frame.
He recovered well, hitting four out of the remaining five.
The crowd cheered as he came around. He rode out with his chin up and a flush of relief on his face.
The second and third riders posted four each, which was now the baseline expectation of the crowd. The fourth, a compact man from one of the eastern houses riding a grey mare, hit all six, which drew louder noise from the audience.
Lord Carlton leaned forward in his seat. "He’s one to beat."
"Undoubtedly," Verna agreed.
The fifth was the palace champion, Olag, on a black stallion, and he made it look easy. He hit six from six, and he barely looked at the targets as he passed them, his eyes already on the next one before the arrow had landed.
The crowd loved it. The emperor looked smug.
"That was impressive," Marie said, with a slight edge to her voice.
"He's very good," Thom agreed.
Verna said nothing. She watched the sixth rider complete a mediocre round of three, then turned her attention to the archway.
The board was carried to the centre of the arena and held up. The eastern house and Olag were joint leaders on six. The Velmart boy on five. Two riders on four. One on three.
Then Kalen rode out.
She came through the arch at the same unhurried walk she had used for the entrance parade, and the crowd, which had been murmuring over the scoreboard, went quiet.
After she walked Sera to the starting line at the far end of the arena, she sat there for a moment, her eyes moving along the circuit ahead of her to the six targets on the inner wall. She had told Verna she would approach them from the opposite angle to the other riders.
When she set off, she went wide. Instead of tracking along the inner wall where the targets were mounted, she took Sera out toward the centre of the arena on a long curve that gave her a diagonal approach to each target.
It was immediately apparent that this was not a mistake or a misreading of the course.
It was a choice, and it was a strange and interesting one, and the crowd watched silently.
The first target passed on her left at an angle no other rider had used.
Her bow came up, drew, released, and the arrow hit the centre of the target with a crack that was audible in the front rows of the stands.
She was already turning to the next before the sound finished with the same diagonal approach, and same result.
By the third target, the crowd had understood what it was watching and the noise built.
She wasn't riding the circuit; she was rewriting it, finding the angles that suited her rather than the ones the course designers had assumed everyone would use.
She did it at a pace that was faster than anyone else while still producing clean hits.
The fourth arrow flew before Sera had fully completed the turn, drawn and loosed in a single movement that looked almost casual. The fifth followed, and then the last.
Six from six in record time, and the crowd was on its feet.
Verna gripped the rail in front of her with both hands. Marie was saying something beside her but she couldn't hear it over the noise. Thom was on his feet along with everyone else in the box. Even Lord Carlton, who was not a demonstrative man, had risen.
Kalen completed the circuit and pulled Sera to a halt at the centre of the arena.
She sat back in the saddle while the crowd made its noise, looking neither at the imperial box nor at the scoreboard.
Then she turned the mare and rode back to the eastern arch at a walk, the same unhurried one she had arrived with.
"Well," Marie said, when the noise had dropped to something Verna could speak over. She turned and looked at her with an expression of awe. "I take back every reservation I had. She’s a superb rider."
"I'll tell her you said so," Verna said.
"Please don't. She'll think I'm easily impressed." Marie picked up her wine. "Is she like that at everything?"
"More or less," Verna replied, and allowed herself one glance at the imperial box.
Borgine was sitting back in his chair with his wine, his expression pleasant and unchanged. If the performance had unsettled him, he was not showing it. Bain, however, was watching the scoreboard with an expression of disbelief and anger.
Good, Verna thought. Let him squirm.
The midday break arrived with the scores posted and the crowd poured out of the stands into the surrounding streets in search of food and latrines.
The final tally after the archery was Olag and Kalen joined first on six, the eastern house archer one point behind on five after his horse had moved at the critical moment on her fourth target.
The remaining seven riders spread below them.
They were served flatbread and cheese and cold chicken in the box while the arena below was swept and the afternoon course was set up.
Verna ate without tasting much of it, watching the workers drag the flag posts into position in the lower half of the arena.
Six poles, she counted, set in a zigzag pattern with the three flag posts at the far end, a course that required tight turns and precise control rather than outright speed.
"The flag course suits a horse that's agile rather than fast," Carlton said, watching the setup with the interest of a man who had spent time thinking about it. "Pure speed won't help you if you knock a pole."
"Are there penalties for knocking poles?" Thom asked.
"Five seconds added to your time for each one," Verna said. She had extracted this from Bain at the dinner along with the rest of it. "Dropped flags are disqualified."
"The palace champion's stallion," Carlton said, "is going to struggle with the turns. He’s a big horse, not built for that kind of agility."
"That's what I'm hoping," Verna said.
She was right, as it turned out.
The afternoon session had different results.
The lower-ranked riders went first, several of them turning in solid performances that set a respectable time to beat.
The Velmart boy was quick and clean, moving into second place overall with a run that earned him cheers from the crowd.
Petro on his bay gelding knocked no poles and dropped no flags and posted a time that was unremarkable but solid.
The eastern house man was fast but dropped one flag on the final collection, which disqualified him. He rode out looking dejected.
Then Olag started his run, and Carlton was right.
The grey stallion was too big for the poles.
He took the zigzag beautifully for the first three gates, moving with surprising agility for his size.
But the fourth turn was tight and he drifted wide, clipping the pole with his shoulder and sending it sideways.
Five seconds. The fifth turn he managed, the sixth he clipped again.
Ten seconds in penalties on top of a time that was already slower than the fastest of the day, which dropped him to third place.
The imperial box didn’t look happy
"That," said Marie softly, "is interesting."
Kalen went last.
She came through the arch and the crowd was already leaning forward before she had reached the start line.
Whatever the morning had done, it had made them invested in a way that was beyond simple partisan support.
They wanted to see what she could do. Verna suspected most of them didn't care which house she represented at this point. They just wanted to see her ride.
She took the first pole at a pace that seemed almost leisurely compared to some of the previous riders, Sera's hooves unhurried in the deep sand, the turn tight and balanced with no drift.
Second pole. Third. The turns were cleaner than anyone else had managed, Sera responding to the lightest shift of Kalen's weight with the trust of a horse that had decided, in the previous days of preparation, that this rider's instincts were worth following.
Not a pole touched.
She collected the three flags at the far end in a single sweeping movement, gathering the first two on consecutive passes and the third on the final turn back, and when she came through the finish line, all three flags were in her hand and her time, posted a moment later on the board, was four seconds faster than the next best of the day.
The crowd did not merely cheer. It roared, the deep full-throated sound of ten thousand people who had just seen something they would be talking about for years, and Verna felt something crack open in her chest.
She was on her feet without knowing she had stood.
Beside her, Marie Carlton was gripping her arm with both hands and saying something that was lost in the noise.
Thom was standing with his arms folded and his head down and a smile on his face that he appeared to be trying to contain and failing entirely.
Even the guards at the back of the box were cheering.
Kalen rode a full circuit of the arena at a walk before returning to the arch, and this time she did look up at the boxes. Her eyes found the Eclipsian blue and silver box and she looked up at Verna and saluted her.
Then she turned and rode back through the arch and the doors closed behind her.
Verna sat down, aware that her hands were shaking slightly.
"She did well," Thom said quietly.
Verna turned to look at him. There was something in his expression she’d never seen before. Something a little like jealousy. "She certainly did," she said, not able to keep the pride out of her voice.
He looked at her for a moment, then turned away without another word.
The torch circuit was announced as the day's final event. The herald walked to the centre of the arena while the crowd resettled, and read the format from his scroll.
Each rider would take a lit torch and complete a full circuit of the arena at a gallop.
The torch must be burning when they crossed the finish line.
If the flame went out, they could attempt to relight it from the station at the eastern arch, but every stop cost them time.
Speed and control, simultaneously, with fire in their hands and ten thousand people watching.
It was, Verna thought, an extraordinary piece of theatre. Borgine would have enjoyed designing it.
The order was drawn fresh for the final event and Kalen drew third this time.
The first two riders, the Velmart boy and one of the middle-ranked champions, both completed clean circuits with their torches burning, posting respectable times.
The crowd watched with the focused attention of people who had understood that the fire added a variable that skill alone couldn't entirely control.
Kalen came out of the arch with the torch held low and to her right, away from Sera's line of sight.
She set off at a canter, building to a gallop as she reached the long straight, and the torch streamed behind her in a line of orange light that was extraordinarily beautiful against the pale stone walls of the arena.
The crowd tracked her in near silence, the only sound the thunder of Sera's hooves on the sand and the guttering rush of the flame.
The turn at the far end was the critical point.
The centrifugal force of the turn would pull the flame sideways and if the torch was tilted wrong the wind of the turn would snuff it.
Verna saw this danger approximately half a second before Kalen reached it and had no way to do anything about it and simply watched.
Kalen leaned into the turn and moved the torch inward, toward the turn rather than away from it, and the flame flattened but held. They came out of the turn at full gallop with orange fire streaming and the crowd cheered as she crossed the finish line with the torch burning clean and bright.
Her time held through the remaining seven riders.
Olag made up some of his afternoon losses with a strong torch circuit, his stallion managing the turns better at a gallop than he had managed the tight poles at a canter, and he pushed Kalen hard, posting a time that was less than two seconds behind hers. But it was behind.
When the final scores were totalled and the board was carried to the centre of the arena and held up, Kalen led on points, Olag second and the Velmart boy a creditable third.
Verna looked at the scoreboard for a long moment.
Then she looked at the imperial box. Borgine was sitting with his wine, his expression still pleasant, but the set of his shoulders was much stiffer. Bain wasn’t looking at the scoreboard, he was looking at Verna, the smile from the morning gone.
She met his gaze this time with a look of triumph.
"One day down," Thom said beside her.
"Two to go," Verna said.
She picked up her wine and, with a smile, raised it at Bain.