Squire (20 page)

The big gelding stamped, ears pricked and alert. Kel gave her helmet to a field monitor, then mounted. Once she was in the saddle, she accepted her helm and put it on.

She wanted an extra advantage today, more than she’d had in training with Raoul or knights like Jerel. When the trumpet blared, she told Peachblossom, “Charge.”

Muscles bunched under her. The gelding flew at his top speed down the dirt lane, hooves thundering in packed dust. For those brief seconds Kel felt like an army of one. She loved no one so much as her horse. Down came her lance, aimed at Sir Ansil’s shield. The long weapon was a feather in her hand. Ansil brought his lance down a breath behind Kel. He doesn’t think I’m for true, she thought, her focus narrowing to her target. He doesn’t think I’ll hit.

She struck his shield dead-on; he struck hers. Her side went mildly numb. Her lance shattered; his didn’t. She turned Peachblossom and rode to her start point. This time she checked the lance that was handed to her. She was suspicious of a lance that broke on the first strike.

“You needn’t worry, squire,” the field monitor assured her. “These is always under our eye. It’d mean a summer mendin’ roads if we was bribed to pass a flawed lance.”

Kel smiled at him, feeling better. She lowered her visor and urged Peachblossom to their place, her grip on the new lance steady. Ansil gulped water as his friends slapped his legs in congratulation. His destrier did not like their closeness and snapped at them. Like most lone knights, Ansil rode a stallion. Kel thought that was a mistake. Peachblossom was stallion-mean when he wished to be, and he would never take off after the scent of mare.

At last Ansil waved to his friends, rode to his place, and brought his visor down. He nodded to the chief herald, who gave the trumpeter his signal. As the call rang out, Kel told Peachblossom, “Charge.” He exploded down the lane.

Kel rose in her stirrups, sure and calm. She had Ansil cold. She knew it from the position of her lance, from the feel of her saddle between her knees, and from the way the air rushed through her visor. Here came Ansil’s fraction of hesitation Raoul had mentioned. Kel struck her foe hard. The coromanel on her lance point rammed just under his shield boss. She popped him from the saddle and sent him flying. The stallion reared, screaming, as Ansil smacked the ground in a clatter of plate armor.

Kel brought Peachblossom around and waited a safe distance from the stallion. She prayed she hadn’t killed Ansil, though she was fairly sure she hadn’t. Field monitors, including a healer, surrounded the fallen knight, removing his shield, helmet, and gauntlets. The healer peeled back an eyelid.

Ansil snarled and cuffed him aside. He sat up very slowly. Joren and the Tirrsmont knight helped him to his feet. He swayed, then waited, eyes on the ground, feet planted wide. Then he looked up. Seeing Kel, he walked toward her. She thought he might collapse when he ducked under the barrier, but he hung onto it until he collected himself.

When he reached Kel, he sneered up at her. “This proves nothing, wench.”

Kel said icily, “That doesn’t sound like what you’re supposed to say, Groten. May I remind you that you just lost?”

“Had we swords - ” he began.

“Do you think I don’t know how to use a sword?” she wanted to know. “You lost. All those traditions you like tell you what comes now.”

Ansil swallowed. “I repent me of the calumny you took from my words with regard to Lord Raoul,” he began.

“I took nothing that wasn’t there.” Something had gripped Kel’s tongue to make her most un-Yamanily frank. “You called my knight-master a dolt,” she continued. “I accept that you wish you’d kept quiet. You called Lerant of Eldorne cur and traitor. You will apologize to him, before witnesses, or we shall return here tomorrow and you can test my skill with a sword. Understand?”

Ansil muttered something, until Kel thumped his shoulder lightly with the butt of her lance. He glared at her. “You won’t live until the Ordeal,” he snarled. “One of us will spear you through your bitch’s heart. I will apologize to Eldorne - need you be a witness?”

“No,” she said. “But make sure one of your witnesses tells me he saw and heard you do it, today.” She turned Peachblossom, wanting to get away from this man and his poison. At her side of the field, she returned her lance to the monitor with thanks.

He gawped at her. “Is something wrong?” Kel asked, wondering if she had missed anything.

He shook his head and smiled oddly. “This is your first challenge, my lady?”

Kel nodded.

“Your first, and you won,” the monitor told her. “Well rode, Lady Kel, well rode indeed.”

Kel waved him off, embarrassed. Looking at the stands, she saw that Raoul stood with Sir Gareth the Younger. He was holding out a hand. The scowling Gareth counted coins into Raoul’s palm.

“So he meant it,” Kel murmured to Peachblossom. “He said he was going to win money on me.” She hoped he wouldn’t bet on her too often. How many times could she fight someone as overconfident and careless as Ansil? Other knights would learn from this. Probably next time she would be the one to fly.

She saw to Peachblossom first. Qasim offered to groom and feed him, but Kel wanted to do that. As she worked she murmured compliments to her wonderful horse. Only when she’d picketed him near enough to Hoshi to gossip but not so close that he could nip, did she return to her tent. There she stripped off her armor and plunged her head into a bucket of cold water. Feeling like herself again, she began to care for her things.

Cleon found her testing her lack of fear of heights in a tree overlooking the lake. “You could have been - gods, Kel, you’ve seen how jousters get hurt! I thought I could watch, I thought, she’s just another squire, but when your lance went…” He shook his head.

“He was overconfident,” she told him. “And I won, so the gods must have thought I was right. Otherwise they’d have made me lose. You know how trial by combat works.”

“You won because you’re good,” he corrected her. “I find it hard to believe the gods sit forever about the Divine Realms betting on jousts and trials by combat.” He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. “At least come down and let me hold you, make sure you’re in one piece,” he called softly.

Kel shook her head. “You come up, and no holding. We have to talk about that.”

The sparrows cheeped encouragement as he clambered out onto Kel’s thick branch. When she repeated what Raoul had said, he nodded. “He’s right. We should be careful about… anything that might happen. My sister had the same trouble. She’s in the Riders,” he explained. “I should have thought of that - and of your good name, for that matter.”

“Have I got one?” Kel wanted to know.

“You do with your friends, and you’d better with anyone who talks to us,” he said bleakly.

His tone made Kel look at him. Someone had said something, she realized. Someone, or many someones. And my friends got in fights over it, but never told me.

“I don’t deserve my friends,” she remarked quietly.

“Sure you do, opal of happiness,” Cleon said. “We’d've failed mathematics to a man without you, for one thing.”

That made her grin. A rolling grumble made her look at her belly. “I’m hungry,” she remarked, surprised.

Cleon dropped to the ground. “Me too. Let’s go eat, O queen of squires.”

That evening as Kel ate with her friends, a servant gave her a note that bore the Tirrsmont coat of arms. Sir Voelden, who’d been with Ansil and Joren, invited her to joust the following day. This was a match, not a challenge in answer to insult - Kel refused it. That afternoon she had confirmed what she had always thought: jousting was serious business, not a game. As she and her friends left to return to camp, Voelden stopped them in Castle Naxen’s inner courtyard. He slapped Kel lightly with a riding glove.

Cleon lunged for the knight with a snarl. Neal grabbed the big redhead. Jump seized Merric of Hollyrose’s tunic before Merric could attack, while Owen hung on to Cleon with one hand and Merric with the other. Kel looked at Voelden, feeling cold inside. “I accept,” she said quietly. “Ten gold crowns if you lose.” As the challenged she could name the penalty.

Kel and Cleon wandered away from Neal, Owen, and Merric once they left Castle Naxen. It did no good. Every time they thought they were alone, others wandered by. They exchanged only two quick, clinging kisses in the shadows, jumping apart both times as people approached.

“It’s like having a train of chaperons,” Cleon grumbled as he walked Kel to her tent. “Does anyone go to bed here?”

They halted before Raoul’s banner. “Bed is where I should be, with a griffin to feed and a challenge tomorrow,” Kel pointed out.

Cleon looked around. The lane where Kel’s and Raoul’s tents stood was filled with nobles returning from the banquet. He sighed. “G’night, moon of my dreams. Send him flying tomorrow.”

I hope I can, Kel thought, watching him trudge sadly off. Her nerves, fizzing pleasantly after those kisses, twitched: she faced an unknown knight in the afternoon.

The griffin was wide awake. Lion-like, he paced as Kel lit her lamps and opened a packet of smoked fish. He ate only half of his meal, did not even try to bite Kel, and flew-hopped between his platform and her cot as she cleaned up after him.

Suddenly he began to fly around the narrow confines of the tent, not stopping. The sparrows hid under the cot; Jump barked his objections. At last the griffin dropped onto his platform bed, curled up under spread and trembling wings, and went to sleep. The sparrows came out of hiding to stare at Kel.

“I have no idea,” Kel said in response to their unspoken query. “Maybe he thinks he needs practice.”

“Whatever that was, it looked really strange,” Owen said. He stood in Kel’s open tent flap.

Tired as she was, she smiled at him. He’d barely said a word around the others. “Come in,” she invited.

Owen shook his head. “You need sleep. I just wanted to ask, could I help you arm up? Myles, he’s a good fellow, but… It may be the only time I can arm someone for combat.”

Though she would rather get ready alone, Kel wasn’t coldhearted enough to resist that doleful face. She would feel the same in Owen’s shoes. “Would you?” she asked. “I’d like it, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Owen brightened. “Mind? Not me! Really? You’re sure? Wonderful! I’ll see you at lunch!” He ran down the lane with a whoop.

Kel shook her head, smiling. She went to tell Raoul, since he’d helped her to arm for Ansil. He agreed to let Owen do it. Kel bade him goodnight, and returned to her quarters for a better night’s sleep than she’d had the night before.

The next day Kel sent her friends away again, making them leave her and Peachblossom in the waiting area to watch the jousts that preceded theirs. Owen had done a good job of arming her. Now she settled her gauntlets and took a deep breath. The joust before hers had ended. Monitors cleared the lanes.

The herald in charge came to give Kel her instructions. He had gone and Kel was in the saddle when something ungainly and orange flapped over the stands and glided to the field. The griffin reached the end of Kel’s tilting lane as she did, perching clumsily atop the wooden barrier. He panted, beak open, as he glared at Kel.

“Do you feel clever?” Kel demanded. “I thought you couldn’t get out of the tent.”

The griffin rose on his hind legs, fanned his wings, and voiced a screech that echoed the length and breadth of the tournament field. Kel shivered; the hair stood on the back of her neck. “Stop that,” she ordered. “Behave. I mean it. Otherwise I’ll chain you next time.”

Sir Voelden was ready at the end of his lane. Kel lowered her visor and waited for the trumpet call. “Charge,” she whispered to Peachblossom.

Voelden was more sure of himself than Ansil, but he was slower and heavier. Kel adjusted her grip and struck his shield squarely, just as his lance struck hers. They swerved and returned to their original ends of the field.

The griffin shrieked as Kel passed him, his cry ringing in the air. The people in the stands were so quiet that Kel heard alarm calls from distant jays and crows. The griffin had frightened the birds; he’d made Voelden’s stallion rear; but Peachblossom’s only response was to blow at the immortal as he went by.

In position, Kel waited. The trumpet called. Peachblossom charged without Kel’s saying a word. Rising in the saddle, she aimed at Voelden’s shield and shifted to put more force behind her lance, a trick she had learned from Raoul. Voelden’s shield ripped free of its straps and went flying. Something hit Kel’s ribs like a hammer. She gasped for air. A man shouted, “Foul!” People roared in disapproval. What happened? she wondered, swaying in the saddle.

Peachblossom lunged at Voelden over the barrier. “No!” Kel whispered. She hauled on the reins, trying to breathe. “Peachblossom, curse you, stop it!” she yelled. The command emerged as a breathy squeak. She turned him and headed to their starting point, then checked her breastplate. There was a dimple the size of a fist under her heart. Voelden had tried to run her through.

Kel asked her field monitor for water and a fresh lance. It gave her time to catch her breath. She inhaled, refilling sore lungs, and wondered how to answer Voelden. Deliberately trying to kill an opponent unannounced was dishonorable.

“You can retire from the lists.” The monitor passed her a fresh lance.

“Thank you, but no,” Kel replied, trying to speak normally. She turned into her lane and waited.

The signal came; Peachblossom charged. Kel rose and braded herself. She angled her shield so Voelden couldn’t slide his lance past it, and struck his shield hard. Her lance shattered; so did his. Kel rammed her shield forward and hooked it behind Voelden’s. Slamming her body sideways behind the locked shields, she heaved. Voelden popped from his saddle to hit the ground.

The crowd roared and came to its feet.

Kel dismounted and walked over to him, drawing her sword. He hadn’t moved. She flipped up his visor with her sword point and pressed the sharp tip to his nose.

“Yield,” she advised, her voice even. “Or I carve my initial right there.”

He raised gauntleted hands. “I yield.”