Trinity Rising: Book Two of the Wild Hunt (Wild Hunt Trilogy 2) (39 page)

The ringing note of hammer on anvil was quickly lost in the drum of hooves and the snorting of horses. Lances wavered, swung down to the couch, arms curled tightly around behind the flared vamplate, and then struck. Both shattered on impact. Selsen pulled the broken shaft of the lance clear but the whirling tip, almost a yard of unpainted ash pole, struck the oncoming Knight on the helm and whipped his head to one side.

He’s lost line of sight
. Ansel surged to his feet, heedless of the stabbing in his hip-joints. ‘Cast up!’ he shouted. ‘
Cast up!
’

Too late. There was no way for the Knight to hear him and recover. His horse surged into another stride and the jagged-ended truncheon of his lance struck Selsen’s shield, skidded off and punched into the overlapping lamés of his pauldron before the horse’s next stride wrenched it free.

Selsen’s own truncheon tumbled to the ground. Scarlet stained the surcoat’s white fabric and somewhere in the crowd a woman screamed. Tilt-marshals ran to catch the horse as its wounded rider slumped in the saddle; voices shouted for the surgeons. Even the Knight who had struck the blow dismounted and ran to help, tossing his helm onto the turf as he went.

No
. Slowly Ansel subsided into his seat, his heart thumping so loud in his chest it deafened him. He didn’t hear Danilar’s reassurances, the anxious chatter of the Elders in the next row. All he heard was splintering wood and his own voice barking an order.
Cast up!

Through the throng of figures at the end of the lists he saw Selsen helped down, armour hastily unbuckled and thrown aside. Hengfors’ lanky figure appeared, and the physician stooped to examine the wound. Then a litter was brought to carry the youth to the hospital tent, out of sight behind the far pavilion. It carried Ansel’s attention with it.

The tilt-marshals cleared the field for the event to continue, the crowd settling back into their seats. Ansel stared at them, unseeing. Injuries were not uncommon at a tourney; they were to be expected in a Knight’s life – if not in the tilt-yard then on the battlefield. It was a risk each man accepted with his spurs. How could it be any different for a novice seeking to gain them?

‘Ansel.’

Danilar’s patient tone said he’d been speaking for some time but hadn’t been heard. Ansel turned towards him and realised he had a death grip on an empty goblet. Wine stains marred the sleeve of his formal robes. Scarlet on white; blood on a surcoat.
Goddess watch over you, Selsen
.

‘Forgive me, Danilar,’ he said, setting the goblet down. ‘I’m afraid I missed that.’

‘I said he’s in good hands. Hengfors is a fine physician.’

‘Oh, I know. I know. It just came as a bit of a shock.’ Blood on a surcoat.
Oh, holy saints, how do I tell her?
‘I’m sure Selsen will be fine.’
Fine? What in hell’s name does
that
mean?

All Selsen had ever wanted was to be a Knight and ride to arms, Jenara had written. It had been the child’s dream from the age of three, playing with carved wooden figures in that dusty courtyard. If the shoulder had been shattered there would always be a weakness there. Selsen would never be able to shield adequately, would never swing a sword two-handed.

How do I break the news that would crush that dream for ever?

The final four novices to compete rode unseen by Ansel. He barely heard the farrier’s signal, the applause for their achievements. Even the fanfare to signal the conclusion of the event did not stir him.

‘The judges will read Selsen’s name,’ he muttered. ‘They must, surely.’

‘I should think they’ll award him the oak leaves,’ put in Festan. ‘By the Goddess, I’d say he’s earned them!’

I only hope the price wasn’t too high
.

Minutes passed. The judges conferred for a nerve-shredding length of time before handing the list of names to the herald.

From the centre of the lists where all could see him, he began to read. ‘My Lord Preceptor, Elders, ladies and gentlemen. On this day, in the presence of Holy Eador and before divers witnesses, the following individuals have demonstrated sufficient feats of arms to earn their elevation to Knighthood. If they are so able, we require and command these Knights to present themselves in our sight to receive their rank and assume the privileges pertaining thereto.’ A ripple of applause. ‘Berengir of Dun Riordain, come forth.’

Smiling broadly, the young man who had worn the green ribbon took his place before the judges’ table. Gone were the plate and mail, replaced by the plain white tunic and surcoat in which he would spend his vigil. Young man after young man followed him in alphabetical order, some sporting slings and bandages, and Ansel found his fingers gripping his chair-arms more and more tightly as the list went on.

They have to name Selsen. They have to
.

‘Selsen of Caer Amon, come forth.’

Goddess be praised!

But Selsen did not appear. Not from the paddock, not from behind the pavilion opposite, where the physicians’ tent was located.

‘Selsen of Caer Amon, come forth.’

If a novice was called a third time and still did not attend, nor send a representative to explain his absence, his Knighthood would be forfeit for a further year. The herald paused, then issued the final call to a new Knight to present himself.

Some kind of commotion broke out at the entrance to the hospital tent, people pushing, others falling back. Then a figure in white came striding forward, one tunic sleeve flapping empty. As the figure drew closer, Ansel saw the shape of the left arm immobile beneath the tunic, presumably strapped across the chest to immobilise the shoulder joint. The edge of a thick dressing poked out of the tunic’s neck.

Pale-faced, sandy hair clinging to a sweaty brow, Selsen was quickly outpacing the robed physician hurrying along behind. At last, all the named novices stood in a line in front of the judges, and the final ceremony could take place.

More relieved than he had ever thought he could be, Ansel pushed himself to his feet. Down the pavilion steps he walked and out through the gate to the judges’ table, where Endirion’s sword lay before them on a white velvet cushion.

Blunt now and pocked with age spots of rust no amount of polishing could remove, it was nonetheless a fearsome-looking weapon, longer even than Ansel’s own greatsword. Biting the inside of his cheek to keep from wincing at the pains accompanying every movement of his legs, he lifted the sword across his palms and turned to face the young Knights. Together, they dropped to one knee.

‘Over three days you have proven yourselves worthy in body to carry the honour of Knighthood,’ he said. ‘You shall go forth from this place to be bathed and purified, thence to the Sacristy to spend the hours until dawn in contemplation, that your spirit may also be found worthy in the eyes of Eador.’ Both hands wrapped around the hilt, he raised the sword to the salute. ‘For the Oak and the Goddess, to your last breath.’

It was done.

‘Stop!’ Hengfors’ shout was all but lost in the chorus of twenty-three voices repeating the oath, but there was no ignoring the heron-like physician himself as he strode up to the table, somewhat out of breath.

‘Hengfors?’ Ansel asked, lowering the sword to rest point-down on the turf. The blade was too heavy for his crippled hands to hold aloft for long.

‘The novice Selsen is disqualified,’ the physician said. Selsen flashed an anxious glance at the judges.

‘On what grounds? Selsen has already taken the oath.’ Amazingly, Ansel’s voice remained steady. Inside he felt like a small boy again, hoping that if he wished it hard enough, something he dreaded would not come to pass.

The physician pointed a wiry, startlingly hirsute arm, his sleeves still rolled to his elbows and spattered with water. ‘This person is not eligible for Knighthood.’

Ansel turned to the judges. ‘Tourney marshals? Has this novice performed in any way counter to the tenets of our Order?’

The three men behind the table shook their heads. Selenas, the Master of Swords, sat back with his hands laced across his stomach and said, ‘On the contrary – Selsen is one of the most capable novices I have seen in years. Unless the Goddess strikes him down in chapel tonight, we can see no reason why he should not receive his spurs.’

The physician’s pale eyes bulged, with fury or outrage Ansel could not determine.

‘Well, Hengfors?’ he said. ‘Why is he ineligible? Because he is mute?’

‘Because Selsen is female!’

23

FLY BY NIGHT

‘So I find you at last in the women’s garden,’ said N’ril.

Gair put up his sword and looked around. The desertman was lounging on a stone bench by the parapet, dressed only in baggy trousers and soft boots with a
qatan
thrust through his emerald sash. A reddish-purple scar gleamed across the meat of his left forearm. Beside him on the bench lay a long, flat box.

‘Should I not be here?’ Gair asked, breathing hard. Overhead, canvas awnings flapped and cracked in the onshore breeze, tugging at their iron supports like badly set sails. ‘Forgive me. There was nowhere on the ship I could work the sword and I needed to practise.’

‘Please, you are a guest in my house. Use it as you will.’

N’ril poured a cup of water from the jug Gair had brought up from the kitchen and held it out to him. He propped his sword against the wall and drank. Despite the breeze and the shade from the awnings, the day’s heat and his exertion had left sweat coursing over his chest and down the furrow of his spine.

‘This is a garden?’ he asked, gesturing around at the rooftop. It was empty but for a few benches and some glazed urns that looked as if they should contain flowers or shrubs.

‘It does not resemble one now but one day, God willing, my wife will sit here with her mother and her sisters to watch our children play. Then you would see it bloom.’ He smiled at Gair’s expression. ‘In Gimrael, men and women do not sit together.’

‘I see,’ said Gair, although he didn’t.

‘Your face betrays you, my friend. But it has always been thus, for thousands of years. When men converse, they discuss horse-racing and money, smoke
chaba
and pick their teeth in a most unseemly manner, and so the women have their garden, where they may be spared such things.’ He grinned. ‘I do not know what women converse about, but I suspect it involves the unseemly habits of men.’

Gair drained the cup and refilled it. ‘You’re not married, then, I take it.’

‘I would have been,’ N’ril said, ‘but it is considered unlucky to bring a new bride into a house in mourning. I was patient; her mother, alas, was not.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘My mother was more disappointed than I, I can assure you. As a minor scion of House Feqqin, and a younger son at that, I am not much of a prize.’ N’ril shrugged and changed the subject. ‘Alderan told me you were raised by the Suvaeon Knights. That is where you learned the sword, yes?’

He flipped open the box on the bench beside him. Nestled in crimson velvet inside was a
qatan
. The black scabbard was scuffed but the hilt had been recently refurbished, its black and red whipping fresh and bright. ‘Have you used one of these?’

‘Never.’

He held it out across his palms. ‘Try it.’

Gair took the sword and drew it from its scabbard. It weighed maybe two pounds, perhaps a little less – half the weight of his longsword. The curving single-edged blade was mirror-bright and perfectly plain, apart from a short Gimraeli inscription below the fuller. Experimenting with the grip, he slashed it this way and that to get the heft of it.

‘The balance is perfect,’ he said, rolling his wrists. Steel hissed through the air like a razor on a strop.

‘The soul-sword is traditional in Gimrael. If you are to pass as Gimraeli, and from the ruling house in particular, you will need to carry one.’ N’ril stood and drew his own blade. ‘And to look like you know how to use it.’

He walked out to the centre of the roof and set himself, balanced on spread feet, with the sword winking in his right hand like the flickering tongue of a serpent.

Gair followed him and copied his stance. It was not too dissimilar to the opening positions he had learned in the Motherhouse. He brought his blade up to mirror N’ril’s, the tips a handspan apart.

‘Good.’ The desertman smiled. ‘Now we begin.’

N’ril was an excellent tutor, both encouraging and thorough. After an hour, Gair’s arms ached to the bone. By the time the sun had dropped low enough to set the awnings ablaze with orange light he was a-drip with sweat and gasping for breath, whilst the desertman’s mahogany torso was barely damp.

‘Was making me work this hard your bloodprice?’ he panted, leaning on his knees. The cut on his shoulder burned.

‘I am honoured that you value my humble teaching so highly, but no.’ The desertman bowed and sheathed his sword with a flourish. ‘A blade sings in your hands. If skill-at-arms is all that is required, I cannot understand why you were not Knighted.’

Gair uncurled his cramped hands from the
qatan
’s hilt. Dark sweat-lines crossed his palms and the scar throbbed from the unfamiliar grip.