by Guy Antibes
“Three touches.” The judge was a fellow officer. He eyed Trevor. “Don’t expect any favoritism from me,” the man said.
Trevor grinned at him. “None expected or needed.”
The woman grunted and screwed her face into something that Trevor imagined was to make her look fierce. He had learned when fighting women not to smile at them until later in the bout, and only when he was about to win.
The match went about as Trevor expected. The woman was fast, but she overextended too much as she fought, giving Trevor the opportunities to score three quick points after each of her lunges.
He bowed to the woman.
“You have fought with Prince Trevor Arcwin,” the judge said to her after he raised Trevor’s left arm.
The move wrenched Trevor’s tender shoulder, but he tried not to gasp as a sliver of pain took him. The woman blushed and bowed to Trevor.
“On the field, I am just another competitor,” Trevor said as gallantly as he could.
“Right,” she said, the disbelief dripped from her voice.
Trevor looked at the judge and shrugged and returned to his bench.
“Here,” Boxster said, handing Trevor a skin of water through the fence rails.
Trevor took a deep draught and gave it back. He noticed the smiles on both Win and Brother Yvan’s faces. “At least I made it through the first round,” Trevor said.
“And the next and the next. You can’t let us down,” Brother Yvan said. “How is your shoulder.”
“I felt a twinge when the judge whipped my arm up to declare me the winner. It won’t be a problem with this competition.”
“But it might with archery?” Win asked.
Trevor nodded. “It might. I won’t know until I draw a bow after I defeat my last opponent here.”
For the first few rounds, Trevor didn’t face anyone that gave him much trouble. The horn blew, and Trevor stepped into location number one. This was his last bout at the end of the arena before moving to the center. He looked into the eyes of a fellow officer. Trevor’s string of easy victories was about to end.
“Ah, my prince, you know I won’t give you quarter,” the big man said. The man was nearly as tall as Trevor and certainly outweighed him. To Trevor, that kind of size meant a slower but more massive blow. His armor was holding up so far, but he doubted if it would get through this match unscathed since he had fought his opponent quite a few times on the practice field. But that was then, and now the stakes were higher.
“A match is a match,” Trevor said. They walked out into the center of the large rectangle and crossed swords before stepping back, waiting for the judge to drop his hand.
With the size of both contestants, Trevor sensed that most of the eyes in the arena were on them. He didn’t shrink from their gaze, but he could feel the anticipation rise as the hand dropped.
Trevor’s opponent charged raising his sword and his free hand. Trevor ignored the raised fist, which was meant as a distraction. He had seen the move before, both in other matches that day and in the practice arena. Trevor held his ground as the man waved his open hand and swung his sword horizontally.
Trevor didn’t have time to get much into a swing to give his sword the advantage of momentum, and when his sword clashed with his opponents, Trevor’s weapon was pushed into his armor. There was his first nick. The man received a point, even though his blade didn’t touch Trevor. The judge raised his hand and called a pause to the bout.
Trevor stood, not having much trouble regaining his breath, which was not the case with his opponent, who had spent a lot of energy getting ready for the charge and the charge itself. He was getting an advantage with endurance, but that would evaporate in an instant if the man scored another touch. Two out of three would give his fellow officer a victory.
Trevor narrowed his eyes. He knew what to do if the officer tried the same move, something that he gave high odds. A touch stopped the bout, so when the hand dropped again, after crossed swords, Trevor used his speed to thrust his sword when his opponent reached back to add force to his swing. The point of his sword almost pierced the leather armor of his opponent.
“The next touch will determine the winner,” the judge said.
As if Trevor needed to be reminded. This time he would be the aggressor, he decided.
The hand dropped, and Trevor thrust his sword and advanced, advanced, advanced. His opponent was too slow to do anything but block the point of Trevor’s sword. Advance, Advance. Then Trevor gasped and thrust his hand in the air in a diversion as he withdrew, moving the blade of his sword past his opponent’s guard and slicing along his sword arm.
“Touch!” the judge said as he raised his hand.
Trevor lowered his and took the blow that the officer couldn’t stop. At least the man flattened his blade as he crashed his sword onto Trevor’s injured left shoulder. The strike shook him, and he staggered a bit for the first few steps walking back to his place on the bench.
His fellow officer followed him. “I honestly thought you didn’t have a head for tactics, Lieutenant Arcwin. You beat me strategically, and that is the proper way to defeat an opponent in any field. I’m sorry I couldn’t pull my sword at the end.”
“It is one of the misfortunes of a duel. In the field, we might have defeated each other simultaneously.”
“Perhaps. A good match.”
Trevor nodded his head. “Good match.”
He sat down heavily and leaned forward, catching his head in his hands, grinding his teeth through the pain in his shoulder.
“Even if your father inspects your body, you have your bruise covered from yesterday.” Boxster said.
“That isn’t what I am thinking of, at the moment,” Trevor said.
“I can help you,” Brother Yvan said. “I have something a little stronger in my bag. Loosen your armor.”
Trevor did as the cleric asked. Brother Yvan had something black and gritty in his palm that he thrust into Trevor’s armor and wiped onto his shoulder. The salve burned.
“It would be better to sit in a cold bath,” Yvan said, “but this will have to suffice. Your shoulder will be numb in a minute or two. It will remain that way until midafternoon. It isn’t a cure, I’m warning you, but it takes away the pain. Wash it off when you return to the barracks and replace it with the other salve if you have any left.”
Trevor nodded as he withstood the burning, but as he sat listening to Win and Boxster give him their own views of the last match, the intensity of the pain began to fade.
He was directed to the center section as men removed most of the rectangles from the field and left the four in the center intact. There were sixteen contestants left in the field. They all sat in a row, facing the now-filled royal box. Renny was the only sibling that he could see. The others might be circulating among the crowds, or they might not have shown up at all since the two most popular events were the jousting competition and the mounted melee.
Trevor did all he could to ignore his family as he went through his matches to the final. The officer in his last match before moving to the center was the hardest, but now he faced an unknown opponent from Dorwick, the country to the east of Presidon.
Glancing at the royal box, he could now see his mother and Lilith, now seated at her mother’s side, waving purple silk handkerchiefs since purple was a state color of Dorwick. He was struck that they supported the Dorwickian rather than their son and brother. The word “betrayal” came to Trevor’s mind, but as he gave their action a thought, not surprising.
Trevor didn’t get a good chance to scout his opponent. His opponent would be better prepared as Trevor noticed an officer leaning over and talking to the other contestant.
Trevor wasn’t particularly fearful, but his opponent would know him better than he knew his opponent, and sometimes every edge counted. He had to restrain flexing his shoulder until he realized he could do one and then the other. The black paste that Brother Yvan had applied still provided heat and numbness
.
The horn blared, and Trevor stood and went through a few phony forms with his opponent as his audience. They stepped to the central timber ring that had been expanded into a hexagon. The crowd cheered, but Trevor tried to put all distractions aside except for one last glance at his father, who looked intently at him. For a second, Trevor wondered what went through his father’s mind, but then snapped his own back to concentrate on the upcoming fight.
The two men crossed swords. His opponent was decent sized, but the structure of his face and neck told Trevor that the man was very, very fit and likely swift. Trevor was anything but slow, but he would have to be quick to react, or the match would be over with two quick touches.
The judge dropped his hands, and Trevor’s opponent jumped back, waving his sword back and forth. It was another diversionary tactic that Trevor was well aware of. He focused on the man’s upper arm, his eyes, and his chest.
The Dorwickian shot forward, stomping thrust by thrust, using the same strategy Trevor had applied to one of his bouts. But Trevor had a defense for that, and as the man thrust, with the larger fighting space, Trevor stepped to the side as he parried and brought his sword down and into the man’s gut. If he wanted to disembowel the man, Trevor could have, but as soon as he met resistance, he stopped pushing.
The Dorwickian grunted as his eyes bulged. Trevor’s would have, too, if he realized that he could have been killed on the spot if this wasn’t a tourney event.
“Point to the prince,” the judge said.
Trevor nodded his head to the judge and his opponent as they crossed swords again. The hand dropped, and there was a flurry of slashes, thrusts, and parries. Trevor was caught up, his thoughts entirely on letting his body react to the actions of his opponent. Trevor felt he couldn’t be beaten if he didn’t spend the time to direct his trained body, something he had learned early on in his training with Boxster. Trevor caught a flaw of the Dorwickian’s slash. He was slow to withdraw his sword at times, so Trevor slapped his sword on his opponent’s wrist. The edge of his sword drew blood, but a vertical strike could have removed his opponent’s hand.
“Match to Prince Trevor,” the judge said.
The Dorwickian growled. “Cheater,” he said under his breath.
“No cheating,” Trevor said in his normal speaking voice. “You were beaten twice. Admit it.”
“I will admit nothing,” the Dorwickian said and stomped off to gather his things as the judge raised Trevor’s hand. This time Trevor made sure he stood on the judge’s left.
Trevor raised his hands, barely wincing as he waved to the crowds. He walked to the royal box. His mother and his half sister had already put away their purple scarves. The king’s eyes weren’t on him, but on the Dorwickian clomping off the field. The man didn’t even stay to collect his second-place prize. That was a slap in King Henry’s face as far as Trevor was concerned.
“You didn’t shame your king or your country, this time, Trevor. You don’t need this award but take it as a token of a hard-fought day. I heard you took a heavy blow to your shoulder earlier.”
“Brother Yvan had something to help,” Trevor said.
The king nodded and gave a wooden case to a page who delivered it to Trevor. He opened it and looked at gilded steel wrist guards.
Trevor courteously bowed to his father. He ignored his mother and half sister and retrieved his belongings on the other side of the arena. Boxster, Win, and Brother Yvan were waiting for him at the south exit.
“Your sister and mother are traitors,” Win said.
Trevor punched Win lightly in the stomach. “Not so loud. You don’t want to be taken away in the middle of the night, do you?”
“No,” Win said, looking sufficiently chastened. He brightened, though. “You were magnificent. I’ve never seen you so fast as when you went into your fighting trance.”
“Is that what it’s called?” Boxster asked. “How come you don’t spar that way?”
“I don’t know,” Trevor said. “Letting my body take over from my mind is something that you taught me. It has never worked so well.”
Boxster laughed. “If you can reproduce that state again, you will have advanced a level. Few can match you with a sword when you fight as you did with the Dorwickian. You found the man’s weakness after you achieved your fighting state. That means your mind was working at the same time your body was reacting. You can’t think while in that state, or you would go entirely on the defensive.”
“I’ll have to practice more then,” Trevor said, “to get better and better.”
Boxster shrugged. “Practice is what matters.”
“I’m nearly there,” Trevor said, laughing and holding out his prize.
“And you’ve made an enemy,” Brother Yvan said. “The Dorwickian looked very angry and embarrassed. He wasn’t happy you might have killed him with the first point and removed his right hand with the second.”
“Not my intent,” Trevor said.
“Someday it will have to be,” Boxster said.
Chapter Seven
~
T revor sat at a table in an open-air eatery close to the barracks. Officers and soldiers both stopped by to look at his new wrist guards. Win went to tell his mother about Trevor’s victory, and Brother Yvan was called to help continue ministering to injured contestants.
“They don’t allow gilded armor in the army, you know,” Boxster said.
“I don’t want to get rid of them,” Trevor said. “I know, I’ll paint them black. I’m not much for all the gaudiness, anyway.”
“That would be a solution,” Boxster said. He suddenly smiled. “Intimidating in its way.”
“I didn’t think of it in those terms,” Trevor said, “but I can see what you mean. Maybe I’ll put a few more touches of black on my battle armor.”
“Do that, and the enemy will know exactly who you are.”
Trevor laughed. “Right. Lieutenant Arcwin, a lowly officer in the royal army. My title doesn’t mean a thing on the battlefield, right?”
“Wrong,” Boxster said, not smiling at all. “There is more to battle than the clash of arms. Conflicts have their symbols and tokens that have nothing to do with how many deaths or injuries there are. Kill a general, capture a member of the royal family, destroy the supply wagons—”
“Chase off the horses, put staked pits in the battlefield. I get it. I suppose you put me in the ‘capture a member of the royal family’ category,” Trevor said.
“That is better than throwing enemy corpses into the enemy latrines.”
Trevor winced at that thought. “Making a statement. That is what my father calls it.”
Boxster nodded. “You don’t want to be part of that statement.” He looked off at the crowds. “How is your shoulder?”
“Sore,” Trevor said.
“Then let’s get back to the practice field and do a little archery practice.”
They walked back to the barracks where Trevor deposited his new wrist guards in his room. He removed his leather armor. The armorer wouldn’t be very happy with the few new deep scratches on the armor, but Trevor guessed there would be others with worse equipment. He replaced his undershirt and tunic, and Boxster helped him carry everything to the armory and check out his bow. There were swords suitable for the tourney, but the archery contest was different.
Trevor knew his bow better than any other in the armory with its longer, heavier pull. He took a quiver filled with the standard arrows all the contestants had to use.
There were few open places in the rank of archers, but Trevor found one on the far side of the field and gave his quiver to Boxster.
He sighed. “Let’s hope I can do this.”
Trevor knocked an arrow, just like he had done thousands of times and pulled the arrow back and let it fly toward the packed straw target. The arrow came up short.
“What?” Trevor looked down the range and tried it again. The arrow was very close to the other, sticking up in the dirt. “I
’ll have to shoot higher.”
Trevor shot again, but the arrow hit the very edge of the target. “That won’t do.”
“Check your string,” Boxster said.
“My string?” Trevor’s eyes narrowed as he nodded his head. He tested the string and removed it from the bow. He looked it over with Boxster. “It has been tampered with,” he said.
“It sure has. Look here. You can barely make out the color change that the water caused. It was stretched out of shape when you first drew the bow, I’d bet,” Boxster said.
Trevor grinned. “Not to worry.” He pulled out another string from his pocket. “I always carry at least one extra.”
Trevor replaced the string and put three arrows in the center of the target. On the fourth try, Trevor felt something snap in his shoulder. The arrow veered off the left.
“I’m done,” Trevor said.
“How bad?” Boxster asked.
“I don’t think Brother Yvan’s magic poultice will fix it.” Trevor tried to rotate his arm in his shoulder, but the pain became too much. “No prize today. I’m going to withdraw and rest my shoulder for the mounted melee.”
“You think you’ll be healed by then?”
“No,” Trevor said. “I hope that I’ll have lived with the pain long enough so I can ignore it.”
Boxster shook his head with a rueful smile. “You are a better man than me,” he said.
“No. You are, overall, the better man. I might have a different set of what is better than you do. I’m going to take the quiver and bow back to the armory unless you want to enter the archery contest. I’m off to bed for the afternoon. If you see Brother Yvan, send him over.”
“Don’t worry about your equipment,” Boxster said. “I’ll take everything back to the armory.”
Trevor took a long, painful walk back to the barracks. He lay down on his bed and tried to deal with the pain in his shoulder. He couldn’t take a nap, so he went to the washroom and took off the black paste before returning to his room and slathering on the rest of the salve from the day before. It helped a little, enough to let him drift off thinking about his sword matches.