The Complete Compleat Enchanter (20 page)

Shea turned to Britomart. “Aren’t you going to get in?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Those are the lesser knights of either side,” she said. “You must know, good squire, that it is the custom of these tourneys for one or two knights of good report to ride at the beginning, as Satyrane has done for us and Blandamour for them. After that, those younger men have their opportunity to gain reputation, while such as we of the Companions remain aside until needed.”

Shea was about to ask who chose the sides. But Britomart gripped his arm. “Ha! Look! With the gyronny of black and silver.”

At the other end of the lists Shea saw a big blond man ducking into a helmet. His shield bore a design of alternating black and silver triangles all running to the same point, which must be “gyronny.”

“That is Sir Cambell and none other,” continued Britomart impressively.

As Britomart spoke, the big man came storming into the press. One of the lesser knights on foot, attempting to stop him, was knocked down like a ninepin, rolling over and over under the horse’s hoofs. Shea hoped his skull had not been cracked.

Ferramont, who had secured another lance, was charging to meet Cambell. Just before black and gold and black and silver came together, Cambell dropped his own lance. With a single clean, flowing motion he ducked under the point of Ferramont’s lance, snatched a mace from his side and dealt Ferramont a terrific backhand blow on the back of the head. Ferramont clanged heavily from his saddle, out cold. The stands were in a bedlam, Britomart shouting, “Well struck! Oh, well!” and shifting from foot to foot.

Nearby, Shea saw Satyrane’s face go grim and heard his visor clang shut as Cambell turned back into the mêlée laying furiously about him with his mace and upsetting a knight at every stroke. Shouts warned him of Satyrane’s approach. He turned to meet the chief defender and swerved his horse quickly, striking with his mace at the lance head. But Satyrane knew the answer to that. As the arm went up, he changed aim from Cambell’s shield to his right shoulder. The long spear took him right at the joint and burst in a hundred shivering fragments. Down went Cambell with the point sticking in his shoulder.

With a yell of delight the defenders threw themselves on Cambell to make him prisoner. The challengers, more numerous, ringed the fallen knight round and began to get him back. Those still mounted tilted against each other around the edges of the mêlée.

A trumpet blew sharply over the uproar. Shea saw a new contestant entering the arena on the side of the challengers. He was a big, burly man who had fantastically decked every joint in his armor with brass oak leaves and had a curled metal oak leaf for a crest. Without any other notice, he dropped a big lance into position and charged at Satyrane, who had just received a fresh weapon on his side of the lists.
Whang!
Satyrane’s spear shivered, but the stranger’s held. The chief defender was carried six feet beyond his horse’s tail. He landed completely out. The stranger withdrew and then charged again. Down went another defender.

Britomart turned to Shea. “This is surely a man of much worship,” she said, “and now I may enter. Do you watch me, good squire, and if I am unhorsed, you are to draw me from the press.”

She was gone. The wounded Cambell, forgotten amid the tumult around this new champion, had been dragged to the security of the tents at the challengers’ end of the lists. The press was now around Satyrane, who was trying groggily to get up.

A trumpet sounded behind Shea. He turned to see Britomart ready. Oakleaves heard it, too. He wheeled to meet her.

His lance shattered, but Britomart’s held. Though he slipped part of its force by twisting so it skidded over his shoulder, his horse staggered. Oakleaves swayed in the saddle. Unable to regain his coordination, he came down with a clatter.

The warrior girl turned at the end of the lists and came back, lifting a hand to acknowledge the hurricane of cheers.

Another of the challengers had taken the place of the oakleaf knight. Britomart laid her lance in rest to meet him.

Then a knight—Shea recognized Blandamour by the three crossed arrows on his shield and surcoat—detached himself from the mob around Satyrane. In two bounds his horse carried him to Britomart’s side, partly behind her. Too late she heard the warning shout from the stands as he swung his sword in a quick arc. The blow caught her at the base of the helmet. Down she went. Blandamour leaped down after her, sword in hand. Somebody shrieked: “Foully done!” Shea found himself running toward the spot, dragging at the big sword.

Blandamour had swung up his sword for another blow at Britomart. He turned at Shea’s approach and swung at this new adversary. Shea parried awkwardly with the big, clumsy blade, noticing out the corner of his eye that Britomart had reached a knee and was yanking a mace from her belt.

Blandamor started another swing. Can’t do much with this crowbar, thought Shea. He was trying to get it round, when he got a violent blow on the side of his head. He reeled, eyes watering with pain. More to gain balance than to hit anything, he swung his sword round like a hammer thrower about to let go.

It caught Blandamour on the shoulder.

Shea felt the armor give before the impact. The man toppled with a red spurt of blood. The world was filled with a terrific blast of trumpets. Men-at-arms with halberds were separating the contestants. Britomart snapped up her visor and pointed to the man in armor at her feet, jerking like a headless chicken.

“A favor for a favor,” she remarked. “This faitour knave struck you from behind and was about to repeat the blow when my mace caught him.” She noticed that the groveling man’s surcoat bore the green bars of Sir Paridell. “Yet still I owe you thanks, good squire. Without your aid I might have been sped by that foul cowardly blow that Blandamour struck.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Shea. “Are we taking time out for lunch?”

“Nay, the tournament is ended.”

Shea looked up and was dumfounded to see how much of the day had gone. The herald who had opened the proceedings had ridden across to the booth where the judge of the tournament sat. Now he blew a couple of toots, and cried in his high voice:

“It is judged that the most honor of this tournament has been gained by that noble and puissant lady, the Princess Britomart.” There was a shout of approval. “But it is also judged that the knight of the oakleaves has shown himself a very worthy lord and he also shall receive a chaplet of laurel.”

But when Britomart stepped up to the judge’s stand, the knight of the oakleaves was nowhere to be found.

The stands emptied slowly, like those at a football game. Some spectators hooted after Blandamour and Paridell as they were helped out. Shea caught a glimpse of Chalmers, hurrying after the veiled girl who had been his neighbor in the stands.

She moved slowly, with long, graceful strides, and he caught up to her at the entrance to the castle. Someone, hurrying past, bumped them into each other. A pair of intense eyes regarded Chalmers over the low face veil.

“It is a good palmer. Hail, reverend sir,” she said in a toneless voice.

“Ahem,” said Chalmers, struggling to find something to say. “Isn’t it . . . uh . . . unusual for a woman to . . . uh . . . win a tournament?”

“Ywis, that it is.” The voice was toneless still. Chalmers feared he had managed things badly. But she walked by his side down the great hall till a blast of warmth came from a fireplace where a serving man had just started a blaze.

“The heat!” she gasped. “Bear it I cannot! Get me to air, holy sir!”

She reeled against the psychologist’s arm. He supported her to a casemented window, where she leaned back among the cushions, drawing in deep breaths. The features outlined against the thin veil were regular and fine; the eyes almost closed.

Twice Chalmers opened his mouth to speak to this singularly abstracted girl. Twice he closed it again. He could think of nothing to say but: “Nice weather, isn’t it?” or “What’s your name?” Both remarks struck him as not only inadequate, but absurd. He looked at his knobby knuckles with the feeling of being attached to a set of hands and feet seven times too big for him. He felt an utter fool in his drab gown and phony air of piety.

Dr. Reed Chalmers, though he did not recognize the sensations, was falling in love.

The girl’s eyelids fluttered. She turned her head and gave him a long, slow look. He squirmed again. Then his professional sense awoke under that intent gaze.
Something
was the matter with her.

Certainly she was not feeble-minded. She must be acting under some sort of compulsion—posthypnotic suggestion, perhaps—Magic!

He leaned forward, and was nearly knocked from his seat by a violent clap on the back.

“Good fortune, palmer!” cried a raucous voice. The dark Blandamour stepped past him, one arm bound tightly to his side. “Gramercy for your care of my little rosebud!” With the undamaged arm, he swung the girl expertly from her place in the casement and kissed her with a vigor that left a damp spot on her veil.

Chalmers shuddered internally. The girl submitted with the same air of preoccupation. She sank back into the casement. Chalmers meditated on a suitably horrible end for this jolly roughneck. Something humorous and lingering, with either boiling oil or melted lead.

“Hi, Doc, how are we doing?” It was Shea. “Hi, Sir Blandamour. No hard feelings, I hope?”

The knight’s black eyebrows came down like awnings. “Against you, you kern?” he roared. “Nay, I’ll give you a meeting beyond the castle gate and spank you with the flat o’ my blade.”

Shea looked down his long nose and pointed toward Blandamour’s bandaged shoulder. “Be careful that iron arm of yours doesn’t get rusty before you go that far,” he remarked. He turned to Chalmers. “Come on, Doc, we got some reserved seats for the beauty parade. They’re starting now.”

As they left, Chalmers said: “Harold, I wish I could talk to that girl . . . uh . . . in private. I believe she’s the . . . uh . . . key to what we’re looking for.”

Shea said: “Honest? She’s Blandamour’s lady, isn’t she? I suppose if I fought him for her and beat him, she’d be mine.”

“No, no, Harold, I implore you not to start anymore fights. Our superiority over these people should be based on . . . uh . . . intellectual considerations.”

“Okay. It’s funny, though, the way they pass women around like bottles of liquor. And the women don’t seem to mind.”

“Custom,” remarked Chalmers. “Beyond that, deep-rooted psychology. The rules are different from those we’re accustomed to, but they’re strict enough. A knight’s lady is evidently expected to be faithful to him until he loses her.”

“Still,” Shea persisted, “if I had a lady, I’m not sure I’d want to enter her in this beauty contest, knowing she’d be turned over to the winner of the tournament.”

“Custom again. It’s not considered sporting to hold out on the other knights by refusing to risk an attractive lady.”

They had been bowed into a kind of throne room with a raised dais at one end. At one side of the dais the bearish Satyrane sprawled in a comfortable chair. Six musicians with tootle-pipes and things like long-stemmed ukuleles were setting up a racket unlike any music Shea and Chalmers had ever heard. The knights and ladies appeared to find it charming, however. They listened with expressions of ecstasy till it squeaked and plunked to a close.

Satyrane stood up, the famous girdle dangling from his hand. “All ye folks know,” he said, “that this is a tournament of love and beauty as well as a garboil. This here girdle goes to the winning lady. It used to be Florimel’s, but she lost it and nobody knows where she is, so it’s finder’s keepers.”

He paused and looked around. “Now, what I want to say is that this here is a very useful little collop of jewelry, both for the lady and her knight. It has a double enchantment on it. For the lady, it makes her ten times fairer the minute she puts it on, and it hides her from anyone who would do her wrong. But, also, it won’t stay around the waist of any wench who’s not perfectly chaste and pure. That’s for the benefit of the knight. The minute this lady can’t keep her belt on he knows she’s been up to tricks.” He ended with a bellowing laugh. A few echoed it. Others murmured at his uncouthness.

Satyrane waved for quiet and went on. “Now, as to who wins, the honorable judges have eliminated the contestants down to four, but among the claims of these four they say they can’t decide no-how. So they ask, lords and ladies, that you yourselves choose.” Satyrane turned to the opposite side of the dais where four women sat, with veils over their heads, and called: “Duessa! Lady to Sir Paridell.”

One of the girls rose and advanced to the front of the dais. Satyrane removed her veil. Her hair was red, almost as bright as her heavily rouged lips. Eyebrows slanted low at the center. She looked a queenly, disdainful scorn at the audience. The company murmured its appreciation. Satyrane stepped back a pace and called: “Cambina! Lady and wife to Sir Cambell.”

She came forward slowly—blond, almost as tall as Cambell himself, and of the mature, Junoesque beauty, she dwarfed without outshining the fiery little redhead.

Shea whispered to Chalmers: “A little bit too well upholstered for me.”

Just then there was a clang as an iron glove was thrown on the floor. Cambell’s deep voice boomed, “My challenge to any who tries to take her from me!”

There was no acceptance. Satyrane never turned a hair. He whipped off the next veil, crying: “The Lady Amoret!” She stepped forward bravely, turning her head to show the perfect profile, but as Satyrane announced, “Lady and wife of Sir Scudamour,” the delicate nostrils twitched. They gave an audible sniffle. Then, abandoning all efforts at self-control, she burst into a torrent of tears for the absent Scudamour. The Lady Duessa looked with angry contempt. Cambina tried to comfort her as the sobs became louder and louder, mixed with words about “—when I think of all I’ve been through for him—” Satyrane threw up his hands despairingly and stepped back to the fourth contestant. Shea saw one of the judges whisper to Satyrane. “What?” said the woodland knight in an incredulous stage whisper. He shrugged and turned to the company.