Chapter Twelve The Finest Knave in All of Traum #2
On my other side, Hamelin and Tory and Samuel were clapping.
Drinking. The arena was vibrating with tumult, with excitement.
It reminded me of the last time I’d been here, when I’d watched the king’s men spar in the dirt, unbridled.
Then, I’d been transfixed. How rousing it had been to see a knight, the spotless symbol of virtue, marred by the filth of ruthlessness.
Now, I sat unmoving, untouched by it all.
We watched as the number of the combatants dwindled. More and more fighters dropped their weapons, the yard becoming less crowded until only six, then four, then two combatants remained. Dedrick on the blue team—
And the man in black armor. The knave.
Dedrick faced his opponent, striking his own armor, shouting a war cry—a threat—beneath his helmet.
He was the wider of the two, and bore the crueler weapon.
When Dedrick swung his mace through the air, blood sprayed from its iron spikes, landing in spatters along the dirt and across his opponent’s breastplate. The dirt went red.
The knave’s breastplate remained an impenetrable black.
“A mace against a hammer.” Benji sucked his teeth and grinned. “Quite the spectacle.”
The two began to circle each other, and the drums grew louder. The knave was the taller of the two—but he didn’t wield his height. He bent at the knees, moving his hammer from hand to hand, like he was too lazy to bear it—or to stand to full height.
The invisible hand pressed harder over my chest.
Dedrick struck out first, swinging his mace with such terrifying force I could hear its whoosh over the drums. The knave dodged, light on his feet. He was fast. Very fast.
Benji’s grin faded. “This knave,” he said to me, pressing his fingers together in a steeple. “What does he look like?”
“Don’t know.” My chin jerked with every movement in the arena. “He never took his helmet off.”
“Come on, Dedrick,” Hamelin shouted, his armor clinking as he leaned over the banister, hungry as the rest of the crowd for violence. “End him!”
The knave dodged another strike. Took a step back. Gave the king’s box a fleeting wisp of his attention—
And swung.
The sound of the hammer, cracking against armor, was a monstrous knell.
Dedrick stumbled back, a massive dent in his right pauldron, stifling his mobility, his proficiency with his mace in his dominant hand all but diminished.
He held it limp, like a deadened limb, then sprang forward, trying to catch the knave with the wide swing of his left arm, but he wasn’t fast enough.
The knave was already skirting away, his steps leaving dust, like ghosts, in his wake.
A scribe climbed the arena stairs and entered the king’s box. “Forgive the interruption, sire.” He held out a sheet of paper. “I’m told you wanted this straightaway.” He lowered his voice. “Regius Ormsby has sent the registrar from Coulson Faire.”
Benji ripped the paper from the scribe. “That jouster never came forward to claim her win. As far as I’m concerned, the gold is mine.”
In the arena, Dedrick was still swinging—another wild attack. This time, the knave answered, closing the distance between them, hitting Dedrick’s wrist so hard I heard the snap of bone from the king’s box.
He dropped his mace. Reached to his belt and drew forth the Harried Scribe’s inkwell, stirring recklessly.
When he flung the ink, it caught the knave along the legs, sizzling over his greaves.
Dedrick tried again, stumbling backward, trying to put enough distance between himself and his opponent to leverage a proper dousing of ink—but the knave was too fast. He sprinted forward. Caught Dedrick at the waist.
Threw him, full force, onto the ground.
The crowd erupted. “Knave! Knave! Knave!”
Benji and I leaned forward in our chairs.
Dedrick tried to get up. The knave was already on top of him, trapping him. He struck Dedrick once more with his hammer, this time over the breastplate, then the wrist as he tried to knock the inkwell from his combatant’s hand.
The crowd was voracious. They rose from their seats, clapping and shouting. Dedrick, like a tortoise fallen on its back, struggled to right himself, to block the knave’s blows—to hold on to the inkwell. The knave held him down, leaned forward, and pinned Dedrick’s wrist to the ground.
Then he lay his other arm, like an iron bar, across Dedrick’s throat.
Dedrick kicked. Thrashed. But he was choking, held down with unrelenting force. I heard Benji’s breath go out of him, like it was his neck being pressed. The inkwell fell into the dirt, and Dedrick tapped the arena dirt three times.
Applause roared, the drum banged, and the lists emptied, every member of the black team still able to walk rushing the arena. They pulled the knave off Dedrick, lifting him and laughing with him, victory and the tail end of bloodlust heavy in the air.
Everyone was on their feet. Even Hamelin and Tory and Samuel, even Otto. Everyone—
Save the king.
Benedict Castor sat crumpled in his chair, his wine a puddle on the floor. His eyes were wide and glassy, his cheeks a sickly gray. He stared into the arena, mouth agape, like he’d seen a ghost.
In his hands was the registrar from Coulson Faire, and on it dozens of names—but only one was underlined.
M. Bauer Bartholomew
When the drums stopped, Benji did not stand.
I did.
A hush fell over the arena. A thousand eyes reached for me, but my gaze was fixed. “Knave.” My voice fissured like stone beneath a chisel. “Step forward.”
Just like when he’d arrived in the arena, the crowd parted for him. The knave stepped forward until he was directly under me, looking up through the dark slit in his visor.
“You’ve won the melee. Won a Divination, the title of champion, and an honorary place among us as we travel from hamlet to hamlet.” My pulse was in my ears. “Take off your helmet, that we might know you better.”
He said nothing, answering with a stillness so complete I wondered if he’d heard me. Then, slowly, he reached for his helmet. Removed it.
Black hair caught the light, and so did the three gold bands pierced into his right ear.
His skin was olive but not warm. He had a prominent nose and dark brows and wore charcoal over his eyes, smudged from browbone to cheekbone.
He kept his head low, his chest rising, then falling in one, two, three breaths.
Then he looked up.
The entire Seacht gasped.
His eyes were pallid, white; the color of limestone, bereft of iris or pupil, hewn entirely of stone. Just like an Omen’s.
Just like mine.
There was blood on his bottom lip. His cheek. When the knave’s stone eyes moved from me to the king, his mouth turned in a distinct, familiar sneer.
I’d know that face anywhere. In wakefulness or in dreams, in daylight or moonlight—in life or death—I’d know it.
Rory.