Chapter Eight Let the Tournament Begin #3
On the floor of the arena, grass had been unrooted and two jousting lanes drawn, separated by a long wooden banister.
The participants waited in the lists with their horses.
Some were knights, others civilians in armor or leathers.
One was a boy who wore no armor or mail or leather, just a flaxen shirt and loose trousers.
I looked for Maude. Took a creeping step toward Weasel Face’s back.
King Benedict Castor was brought a helmet and a horse, and he mounted with ease.
When a knight handed him his lance, the king held it with a kind of assurance that only comes with competence; the boy knew what he was doing, which pissed me off.
Drums beat, applause echoed. Another jouster took the lane opposite the king, and a purple flag waved.
The jousters raced toward each other, the knell of pounding hooves joining the drums. Lances were raised, and—crash!
The king struck his opponent on the shoulder. The man jerked back in his saddle and tumbled off his horse. When the king withdrew his helmet and accepted his raucous applause, his smile glistened in the light.
Meanwhile, I was inching my way closer and closer to Weasel Face, her neck and the loom stone upon it barely an arm’s length away.
Benji won another round. Then another—I’d bet good money his opponents weren’t bloody trying. His fourth opponent was the boy in the flaxen shirt I’d seen earlier, who looked no older than the king himself. He had no gold or silver in his teeth but gaps where several had fallen out.
“All the money in the world for a chance to have a Divination!” he called, waving at Sybil in the king’s box.
The king flicked his wrist, and the boy mounted his horse.
Benji wore full armor, and so did his warhorse.
He hefted his lance with ease, gripped it firmly, levied it like a threat.
But his opponent was thin. He’d been forged by breads and coarse grains, not the red meat the nobility consumed; the lance likely outweighed him.
Still, his fervor was enough that he made it onto his horse and managed to lift his lance.
The drum beat, and the purple flag waved.
The king burst forth at a canter, and the boy’s horse managed an unsteady trot.
Jostling in his saddle, the boy’s smile faded.
He fought to keep his balance. When he looked up and saw his opponent hurtling toward him, the boy’s eyes widened. He cried out. Dropped his lance.
When the king reached him, it was not the crash of wood upon armor, but the crack of bone, shattering. The whoosh of air, fleeing lungs.
The thud of a body, hitting the ground.
The crowd rose from their seats and cheered. Everyone watched the king ride his horse in a victory lap around the arena. But my gaze was upon the boy.
He’d been knocked from his horse and was now on the ground, crumpled and struggling to breathe. His eyes were wide and unblinking, reflecting gray skies and nothing else. I knew, even from a distance, that he’d been mortally wounded.
It hurt to swallow.
“Like a little sprite in the glen,” Sybil murmured to no one.
“Anyone might compete in the tournament,” said Large Teeth. “But it’s not for everyone, is it? Knights are better trained, better fed, better educated. Common nobodies could never win these events, but it gives them hope, dreaming that they might.”
Sybil’s voice was a lifeless rasp. “And so even hope becomes an illusion in the Stonewater Kingdom.”
Whether by skill or design, the king never lost a match. For every round of applause or crash of a lance upon armor, I crept closer to the loom stone. By now I could see the individual rings of the silver chain that held it around Weasel Face’s neck. Fingers shaking, I reached out—
She leaned forward, forcing me to lock my fingers in a fist and shove them back against my side. “Who’s that?” she asked the other knights.
“No idea,” said Large Teeth.
Another jouster entered the arena, leading a pale horse.
Not one of the knights—they all wore purple sashes over their breastplate.
This one wore dark, russeted armor and bore no weapon or sheath on her belt, just an empty loop along her right hip where an axe might sit.
When she mounted her horse, turning the animal up and down her lane, she made no acknowledgment of the clamoring crowd or the knights in the lists.
Her gaze was lifted upward, steadfast and unflagging, upon the king’s box.
There was no life I could wake to where Maude Bauer wouldn’t be the most formidable creature in it.
The king rode to the opposite lane, then lifted his lance to salute Maude. She gave no return salute—she merely leaned down, muttered something to her horse, tucked her lance, and took her place.
I sucked in a breath.
The purple flag waved.
The horses rushed, the riders leaning forward, and crash—both lances shattered. The crowd roared. Maude had kept her seat, and so had the king, though there was a considerable dent in his right rerebrace.
Maude returned to her starting line and took up a fresh lance, still and stoic upon her horse. Slowly, as if stretching, she lifted her left arm. Brought it to her helmet. Tapped three times.
The signal. Do you have it?
I braced myself against the wall, lifted my own hand, and tapped my helmet once. No.
“Hamelin, Samuel.” Another knight was running up the arena stairs into the king’s box. Weasel Face turned to face him, slipping once more away from my grasp. “There’s been a disturbance. Apparently—”
“Shut up, Dedrick!” Large Teeth put up his hand. “The king is about to win the joust.”
When the purple flag waved once more, Maude spurred her horse, lance steady as the animal rushed forward. The drum of hoofbeats pounded in my chest. I was like everyone else—held captive by the arena.
Boom!
Maude’s lance caught the king along his shoulder, its tip breaking against his pauldron.
The king flew back, his own lance lifting like a tower, then falling with him.
The uproar was catastrophic—but then Maude’s horse jerked.
She cantered past the end of lane, her lance still lifted.
There was no opponent before her now save the arena’s wooden stands.
And the king’s box therein.
Maude’s lance shattered along the banister, the collision rattling wood and armor, sending half the stands off their feet.
I fell to my hands and knees, and Sybil toppled from her seat.
The king’s chair upended, his bowl of gold spilling, coins raining into the stands, folk of Coulson Faire jumping and diving to catch a handful.
The knights shouted. “Get the king!”
The audience screamed. “Get the coin!”
Ankles and elbows tangled; a dozen guards had fallen in the same corner of the king’s box.
A knee caught my temple, knocking me senseless.
Weasel Face had fallen like the rest of us and was a kicking horse, throwing her weight around, trying to get to her feet.
And my body knew without being told that there was no better moment.
I reached out with unearthly speed. Clutched the silver chain around her neck with both hands. Yanked so hard it split my skin.
The chain shattered. Down went the loom stone, clattering onto the floor near my knees.
Weasel Face must had known the weight of it—must have felt the imbalance—because the moment it fell her mouth was open, her beady eyes going wide.
She put a hand to her neck, then turned, searching the ground frantically.
“You!” she barked, turning to me. “That loom stone at your knee—give it here!”
Thief that I was, I reached beneath my left leg. Clutched the loom stone. Held it out to her. She snatched it from my hand.
But not before I’d managed to slip it, rough side down, onto my bare finger.
I could see Sybil in my periphery, her silver hair a beacon. But then a bright white light bloomed behind my eyes, eclipsing the arena and everyone in it. The floor dropped from beneath me and I fell, tumbling down into the void of my mind. Flailing, falling—
Into memory.