“By the Gods!” King Fitzwilliam bellowed, as he strode into the room with Yervan and the usual cluster of pages at his side. “I step out for one moment – just one, mind you – and this court cannot hold order? Who do I rule here? Lords and knights? Or ill-bred farmhands and guttersnipes?”
I wisely kept my opinion to myself. So did the rest of the court, who bowed in turn as Fitzwilliam passed by, ascended the steps before the throne, and took his seat. The King looked as regal as ever with his golden circlet of a crown and ermine-trimmed mantle. Given his expression, he also looked as regally pissed off as ever.
“Well, now,” he said testily, as everyone remained silent. “Surely, someone can formally introduce our guest to me?”
I decided to take the plunge.
“Your Majesty, this is Skallgrym Serikkaylen of the House of Friesain. She is daughter to the recently deceased King Angbor, sister to Galen the Court Wizard, and my dear friend. She has traveled many long and lonely leagues to serve as my Champion in the Spring Tournament.”
Rikka bowed, and Fitzwilliam nodded in return. “Welcome, centauress Serikkaylen. Though your greeting here was singularly ungracious, the remainder of your visit shall not be. I shall see to it that you are provided with lodging for the duration of your stay.”
“Thank you, your Majesty,” Rikka breathed, doing an equine version of the curtsey. Though her motion was graceful, it was marred by the ponderous clink-clank of her heavy steel arms and armor. “But I would prefer to room at the Dame’s Tower, as Dame Chrissie’s guest and guardian.”
Fitzwilliam nodded assent.
“So be it.” The King raised his voice again as he added, “Let there be no more rancor among us over this centauress’ presence in our midst. She is a guest of ours, and a guest from an ally. In this war against the darkness, the centaurs have chosen to stand with us in the Light. Do any here dispute this? Speak now, or be held accountable for no less than treachery to my cause!”
The room was dead silent at that.
“Very well then,” the King said, after a few moments. He looked over towards me, adding, “Dame Chrissie, I excuse you from this impromptu session of the royal court. I charge you with the care of our honored guest whilst I try to actually get some work out of my high-spirited vassals.”
“Of course, your Majesty,” I said, bowing once more. “She shall be in good hands with me.”
I turned and motioned for Rikka to follow me. She did so, and all eyes in the room watched as her hooves clopped across the marble floor. I found myself holding my breath until the doors of the throne room finally shut behind us with a boom of finality.
“I’m sorry about that reception,” I said, as we wended our way up towards my tower office. “The royal court…that’s the worst, most hostile I’ve ever seen it.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Rikka said.
I gave her a look. “Thank goodness?”
She nodded as she trotted along spritely at my side. “Oh, yes. I’d have been worried if the greeting I got was the friendly way they did things in this kingdom.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t disagree with her one bit.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rikka looked suitably impressed by the high ceilings and spacious interior of my tower demesne. She nodded as if in approval as I showed her around the top floor. The pages had made sure that my carpets, blackboard, table, hearth, and assorted bits of furniture were all clean enough for visitors to see. I found my chest swelling with pride as she took it in.
In the glow of the early afternoon sun, my place did have a certain medieval splendor. Since my office made up the interior of one of the palace’s dunce-cap towers, it had a high, vaulted conical ceiling. Motes of dust danced in the rays of sunlight from the open windows below. Even my ratty mascot, Grand Master Mothball, had a noble look when backlit by the radiance of day.
“I really should find a spot to set aside the tools of my trade,” Rikka noted, after surveying the place. “Where do you keep your household armory?”
Ah, yes. To a warrior child of a weapons smith, every home would have a spot to store the weapons after play. Probably somewhere between the pantry and the nursery.
“Um, I don’t really have one of those,” I explained. “Well, the bottom two levels of this tower are technically an armory, but I don’t think trapdoors and wooden ladders really mesh all that well with the centaur frame.”
Rikka laughed at that. “Not well at all! With your leave, I shall just set my gear out along the wall.”
She went to the open space across from the hearth and began unloading her burden. Clinks and clanks rang out as she pulled maces, swords, and more exotic weapons from her twin grab bags of death.
For the life of me I couldn’t see why she’d brought so much stuff. Perhaps she was the kind of traveler who worried about being caught without something vital at a key moment.
I spotted a small book or booklet sitting atop the scrolls piled on my office table. While Rikka unpacked, I went over to look at it. The well-worn cover was made of reddish leather, and sported a knight triumphantly holding a sword above his head. A small note had been placed under one corner, which I took out to read.
This is a copy of the Rules of the Spring Tournament. I felt that since neither you nor your Champion have been raised in the Kingdom of Andeluvia, this would come in handy.
- The Lord of the Pursuivant
I sent up a silent ‘thank you’ to Herald and began flipping through the book. Luckily, it spelled out the regulations in simple, straightforward language.
The first section dealt with customs and the duties of the King, the participant, and the Primrose Lady of Spring Beauty. I gritted my teeth as I dog-eared the page for later study. Normally I didn’t deface books this way, but this copy of the rulebook already had tears, rips, dog-ears, and more than a couple of food stains.
At least I hoped they were food stains. The alternative made me shudder.
Later sections of the book covered scoring and individual events. This was all stuff that Rikka would need to know, especially if she got to select what to participate in. Of particular importance was the last section, one that had already been dog-eared by the last reader. The final event, the ‘Grand Melee’ had already become a grudge match of sorts between Rikka and Sir Kagin. Personally, I hoped things wouldn’t get that far.
My browsing was interrupted by the loud muttering that came from Galen’s younger sister. I put the book down and gave her a look. She stood before the dress mannequin that Lady Behnaz and the royal pages had left. The young centauress looked over the fringed, beaded, and terminally pink outfit with a critical eye.
“Ridiculous, just ridiculous,” Rikka murmured, as if to herself.
“On that, we can agree,” I said. “It’s a pretty silly outfit.”
“Silly? I was thinking wholly impractical!” She poked the shoulder and winced as the soft fabric indented under her finger. “How could this form of clothing provide any sort of protection in a tournament?”
That took me a moment to answer. “It’s…well, it’s made for a completely different purpose.”
“Oh, of course! I didn’t stop to think. It’s obvious what this was really made for.” She did a double-take as she added, “No, wait. That doesn’t make much sense either.”
“It doesn’t?”
“Well, look at how constrictive it is!” Her tail flicked the air, expressing her bewilderment. “Wearing this obviously shows that you are in heat. But if you wore it, how would you consummate the mating? I suppose that a male could lift his leg over your–”
“Yeah, let’s put that aside for right now,” I broke in, heading off that line of reasoning. “Let’s just say that it’s ‘symbolic’ and leave it at that.”
“If you wish. I was trying to figure out if it was related to the stocking you are wearing over the top of your head.”
“It is, and I wish it weren’t,” I said heavily. I rubbed my brow
as I leaned back against the table, tournament book in hand. A thought occurred to me. “You know, given all that I’ve had to deal with today, I just want to get out of the palace for a little bit. Maybe get a drink. Are you up for that?”
She clopped a forehoof on the floor in assent. “That would be delightful, Dayna. Among centaurs it is considered good luck to imbibe what we call ‘fluid valor’ before we take the field.”
“Good. Let me call in someone to give us some advice on that.” I went over and yanked on one of the purple bell-pulls that Galen had installed, which rang a summons bell for the royal pages.
While I waited for one to show up, I went around to one of the chest of drawers I’d recently inherited from the palace surplus storage. I pulled out a little leather coin purse, stuffed with the spare bits of change left over from paying my first round of taxes. I secured the purse inside one of my jacket’s interior pockets.
In the meantime, Rikka busied herself with removing all but a few plates of her scaled armor. She re-adjusted the web of belts that held her trio of svelga, making sure the knives were within easy reach, but she didn’t strap on any other edged weapon. Obviously, she felt secure enough here not to wear her usual menagerie of blades.
Percival appeared on cue, slipping inside and staring in amazement at the centauress that towered over him. She smiled down at the boy and his cheeks colored. He turned to me next with a little bow.
“As it please you, Dame Chrissie, how can I be of service?” he asked.
“I need to you give me and my friend Rikka here a recommendation,” I began, but then quickly added, “But before you do, I need you to answer a question for me.”
“Of course, my lady!”
“Percival,” I said sternly, “what did you say when you interrupted Lady Behnaz’s work on my hair? When you insisted that I come with you to the throne room?”
“Um…” he screwed up his face as he thought back. “I said that you should come quick, because blood would be spilled, and that the King needed you.”
“That last bit, there. That’s what I wanted to ask you about.” I took a breath before I went on. “When I showed up, the King wasn’t there. None of his agents were there either. Not the Commander of the Guard, not the Court Wizard, not even the Lord of the Pursuivant.”
“Yes…” he said uneasily.
“So,” I concluded, “why did you tell me that the King needed me? How could he, when he wasn’t even present in the first place?”
“Oh!” Percival’s hand went to his mouth. His flush deepened, and he looked like he might cry. “I’m so sorry, Dame Chrissie! I spoke of something that I should not have heard! Please don’t tell anyone, I don’t want to be flogged!”
“No harm came to either of us,” Rikka put in. “Really, if this is a lie, it is a little one that should be forgiven.”
“Yes, but there’s no lying going on,” I pointed out. “Percival, I know you. You’re no liar. And even if you were, you wouldn’t mention something you ‘should not have heard’. I won’t tell on you, I promise. But I need to know what you meant by that.”
He swallowed hard. “A couple months ago, I was serving the King late one night. Mostly, I was busy refilling his wine goblet while he conferred with the Court Wizard.”
Rikka perked up at that. Of course, she was interested in anything that involved her older brother. I perked up too. This sounded like the same night that Galen had spoken about to me, back when he said that the King ‘trusted me more than I knew’.
I gestured for Percival to go on.
“The Court Wizard and his Majesty were discussing the ‘worst of the worst’. At least, I think that’s what they said. It was all the most awful and distressing things they thought might happen soon, and how they might handle these things.”
That sounded like what I would have called ‘disaster planning’ for the worst-case scenario. It was something I could see a responsible ruler like Fitzwilliam doing. And it tracked with what Galen had said about discussing things with the King, like the awful state of the land’s finances.
“Then the Court Wizard said something that made me frightened,” Percival admitted. “He said, ‘What do we do if there’s a…I think he said, ‘crisis’, and the King can’t handle it?’ His Majesty said, ‘Then, I need Dame Chrissie’.”
Rikka’s expression went from amused to perplexed in an instant. Mine probably did too.
What in the world did King Fitzwilliam mean by that?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I need Dame Chrissie.
It sounded like Fitzwilliam had put me into his disaster planning roster. But my position on the Royal Court was marginal at best. I was a low-ranking knight in the presence of lords with much more land and power.
Scratch that: I was a low-ranking knight with no land, no money, and no power over anyone at all.
How was I supposed to handle a crisis that the King himself could not?
“I thought that if the King felt that way, it was for a reason,” Percival continued. “I saw how angry everyone was getting when Lady Rikka showed up. I thought it was a crisis. Something that you could handle, since the King wasn’t there.”
I let out a sigh. I wasn’t sure what to say next.
“The lad meant well, Dayna,” Rikka said. “He was right, there was trouble brewing. And you did handle it just fine.”
“I guess I did,” I allowed. “But it could have just as easily gone the other way. The same people who didn’t appreciate your arrival like me even less.”
“I’m sorry, Dame Chrissie!” Percival said. The kid looked like he might start to cry. “If…if you want to dismiss me from your service…”
That startled me. I quickly moved to reassure him. “What? No, you’ve been a great page up until now. Just…well, maybe you could try harder to find the King next time before you call me, okay?”
He bobbed his head eagerly, relieved. “I shall, my Lady!”
“That’s the spirit,” Rikka added encouragingly. “Now, Dayna, as to that ‘recommendation’ you wanted to get…”
“Yeah, that,” I said, remembering my initial reason for calling Percival. “If I recall, your family lives close by. Would you be able to recommend a tavern for Rikka and I to get something to drink? Preferably close to the palace grounds, big enough so that my friend can drink inside, maybe not too seedy?”
Rikka snorted and flexed her knuckles. “Seedy might not be too bad, Dayna. It might not be a bad idea to get a little last-minute combat practice in, should someone try to pickpocket us.”
“I’m sure that Grimshaw would approve,” I pointed out, “but I don’t want to chance your getting hurt before the big day.”
Percival thought for a moment, and then his face brightened. “Oh, I know just the place! My father frequents a tavern within a bowshot of the main gates! I don’t remember the name, but it has a big green sign.”
“Is it on the main avenue leading to the gates? Looks like one of the doors was taken off the entrance to make the sign?” Rikka asked. Percival nodded. “I passed that place on the way here. I remember it.”
“Then let’s head out before the dinnertime crush,” I said. I addressed my page once more, adding, “On that note, see about having the royal kitchens send up food for both dinner and breakfast. For me, two centaurs, a fayleene, and a griffin.”
“You’re going to become an ink keeper at this rate,” Rikka remarked, after Percival had bowed and left. “That is, an ‘innkeeper’. Sorry.”
“Actually,” I pointed out, “your speech is getting much better.”
“I’m paying more attention to it now. Ever since you showed me that all I had was a ‘learning disability’, I’ve been trying harder. It is no worse than practicing with a weapon in one’s off-hand.”
“Well, as far as being an innkeeper, if I could charge money, I’d consider it,” I admitted. “Though your brother normally stays in his section of the palace, he likes to take his dinner with the rest
of us, at least when I’m in.”
“I can see why.” Rikka followed me out the door and towards a side corridor that led to the courtyard. “If the royal court is any example, your tower is probably the only spot for decent company.”
I had to laugh. That was one of the things I liked about Rikka. She reminded me of Hollyhock in many ways, such as her martial bearing. But she was also easy to get along with, which made her good company as well.
Sunlight sparkled off parts of Rikka’s barding and the few bits of armor she’d left on. We crossed the rapidly greening courtyard and passed through the main gate, which was a massive arched thing complete with a wicked-looking portcullis. Although it was raised for now, the sharp tips at the bottom gleamed like a guillotine ready to fall as we passed underneath.
The guards at the palace gate came to attention as we passed by. I caught at least one of them sneaking in a second glance. It wasn’t at me, either. Rikka may have looked alien to many Andeluvians, but she was still a strikingly handsome woman to boot.
The main avenue that stretched away from the palace gates was bustling as usual. I craned my neck, looking for my soothsayer friend, but Zenos had apparently taken the day off. The crowd was about as thick as when I’d visited the soothsayer’s guild, but it was quite different in nature.
Today, the atmosphere was wilder, more jovial. Fewer carts rumbled down the thoroughfare, while the street vendors were more aggressive and vocal in selling their wares. Instead of street cleaners and washerwomen going about their chores, the sidewalks were jammed with a more festive sort of people.
There were young couples dressed in colorful matching tunics, dice games being played down cramped alleyways, and revelers cheering on street jugglers or puppeteers. The smells of pine tar soap and leather were replaced with scents of wine, bread, and freshly baked meat pies. While things weren’t yet at a fever-pitch, it felt more than a little like New Orleans just prior to Mardi Gras.
I did notice something else, though. Sprinkled in amongst the easygoing crowds were young, strapping men, some wearing armor. They looked as if they were enjoying themselves, but they didn’t gather around the musicians or the mummer’s groups. Instead, they lined up to wait their turn at the blacksmith, or the leatherworking shops.
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