by David Keck
"Anyway, I spurred my horse at him and swung," Badan declared. "Started high and swung underhand." Again the crowd flinched from his blade. "I caught him on the back of the head." His teeth glinted. "Now, I swear I was trying for the flat of the blade. I just reckoned on putting him out for a while. But... Poor bastard. No ransom now, but my boys dragged off his armor, and his horse looks all right." He stuck the long blade into the turf, swaggering. "I couldn't believe the look on his face, though. Standing there with one shoe off and one shoe on, like. His head wide open. He looked a fool."
Badan leered at others, waiting for guffaws, but none came.
"Hells, Badan," said one man.
Long-faced Sir Agryn actually stood.
Badan appealed to the others, plucking his sword from the turf. "It was just the sight of him there, that's all. Just that bare foot and—"
There was a sound like cut silk; Agryn parried Badan's waving blade.
"Badan. You have struck a peer undefended. You have struck a peer undefended from horseback while he was on foot. And you have struck from behind. By the Silent King and his Host both, this is a tournament only. And you have compounded your madness by looting his person. I concede that you are ready to leap into the Hells, but do you mean to turn the Eye of Heaven from us all?"
Under the huge and empty sky, this threat seemed very real.
But Badan jerked his sword free, staggering a drunken step backward. 'This is not your Septarim now, monk," he snarled. "We're fighting men here. Not ghosts. Not damned bloodless priests."
Durand climbed to his feet. He was not the only one. But Agryn said nothing.
"It was bad luck," snarled Badan. The sword glinted. "And he was armed. It could as well have been me! If you've no stomach for a fight, maybe you ought to go back to playing under your habit!"
The somber knight twitched his cloak aside, freeing his sword arm. A glance told Durand that none of the others knew what to do. But, at that moment, Coensar strode into the firelight. His hand was on Keening. Lamoric followed behind.
"What is the matter with you?" snapped Lamoric. "Badan? Agryn?"
Badan snorted.
"Put that sword away, Badan," Coensar ordered. "Put it away now!" Badan obeyed. "Good," said Coensar.
"I'm in no mood for this." The young lord stalked around their circle. "I did not hire you all to watch you pick at each other. I've had to ransom nine men today. Nine! You had good reputations. Hard men. Good in a fight. I'd like to know what I hired you for, if I'm the only one can best a man."
He stopped himself, touching his face. "Never mind. The season has been long ..." He fumbled with a smile. "You. It was Berchard, yes? I am going to sit down, and you are going to tell us all how the dead come to life."
"Ah." The one-eyed knight scratched his beard, surprised but recognizing a command performance when he heard one. "Yes, Lordship. We was fighting down in Pendur. South. Badan here had more hair."
"Right," said Lamoric. He flopped into his chair.
"We ended up on the losing side of a row down there without a friend for thirty leagues and no one left to pay us. And after two days of slinking from hill to hedge, walking our horses like a pack of spaniels, our food ran out! So, without a penny between us, my lot decided we had better find a likely spot and get ourselves some provisions."
Durand watched glances exchanged around the fire. Agryn and Coensar gave a sober nod. Guthred took it in, shaking his head. Lamoric leaned and listened.
"Well, we were on enemy land, after a fashion," the bearded knight said. "In any case, the next village we found, we came in riding. I remember it felt cursed good to get off my feet. And this village, it was one of those type you find built like a wheel round a well or river or something—with long spokes of field jutting out into the trees. We charged straight down the track. And all was well. The place was deserted." He shrugged with his palms upturned.
Durand watched Lamoric. His hands clenched and unclenched. He looked to Heaven. Coensar, meanwhile, stared snake-steady into the fire, his eyes gleaming.
"But we had no idea what we should take," Berchard was saying. 'This was no burgher's mansion. A barrel of beer if we could find one, that was sure, but other than that we had no notion.
"So, me, I cantered my horse up to the mill, dropped over the fence and made for the door. Just in case, I made sure my sword was ready. Some miller might have been waiting with a scythe or a mattock or some cursed thing, ready to knock my head in. Bastards, millers." This drew Durand's attention. He nearly laughed. "So, I was careful. But I needn't have been. The mill was empty, too. Dark and thick with dust inside, with nothing in the place but corn and the racket the mill wheel was making.
"I ducked in and made for the larder. There were oats, dried peas, flour—that kind of thing. I even found beer. I thought sure I'd set us up for days."
Badan laughed.
"Now," said Berchard, a thick finger in the air, "all this took some time. I don't know how much exactly, but some. And I couldn't hear much but the big wheel squawking and rattling. So, when I got outside, my arms full of corn and peas and whatnot, what did I find but this whole bloody village lined up looking at me? And they were all kitted out like madmen. Armlets and anklets and circlets of leaves and sticks. I might have laughed right out if it hadn't been for the hellish grim look in their faces. Hells!
"I reckon they'd trooped back from some forest festival to find my friends riffling their crofts. Badan and the rest jumped on their horses and made for the hills."
"We didn't know we'd left him!" Badan protested. "There was no time!"
"No time for me. I'll give you that. Those peasants hauled me out to the edge of town and this monstrous great oak. And this old brute had this one great bough stuck out over the road like a long arm pointing nowhere. And I peered up at this notch in that long bough, and saw it smooth-polished and shining, and I knew that I'd be in front of the Throne of Heaven before nightfall.
'They threw a rope up and over that thing and snapped it down into that old groove and started to haul me up. And they were dancing, the bastards. I was strangling and they'd got back to their festival. I think I actually kicked another life into the thing—unless they came back because of the noise.
"So, I was hanging there, all my weight on the cords in my neck, knowing if I stopped straining the rope would pinch my windpipe flat, and the bastards were dancing. I'm spinning slowly, round and round, sucking air through my teeth. And I know I should be thinking on what to say to the Warders at the Bright Gates and dying well, and all that. But I am so angry. I start throwing myself side to side, trying to pop my hands loose, I think. Trying to get at them.
"Then that rope made a tearing sound. A little critch sound inside." He appealed to Lamoric, adding, "Lordship, my eyes must have bulged right out of my head."
"I'm sure, Berchard," Lamoric managed.
Berchard spent a moment looking back at Lamoric, but then pressed on. "So, with the cords in my neck stiff as broomsticks, I started kicking, jerking back and forth with lightning flashing through my skull."
"We should have stuck by!" Badan said. "You must've looked like a pike. A fat bearded pike."
'Then there was a short drop, a great flash, and the rope went altogether." He puffed out his cheeks and sighed wetly. "I ran faster than I ever ran. I must've made the woods before they even knew I'd gone. But I remember looking back over my shoulder, and there was this long ragged line of charging peasants swinging like a scythe across a fallow field, pounding up this boiling wave of dust."
He stopped, peering up into the rapt faces of shield-bearers and peers alike. "Really. I've still got something of a scar under all this somewhere," he offered, tilting his head back and scrabbled at the brown bush of his beard. Any scar would be conveniently difficult to find.
Moaning arose among the sceptics. Berchard held up one hand, flat.
"I went on pilgrimage after that. To the shrine of the Warders at the Pale City." Three hundr
ed leagues across the Fiery Gulf.
"Aw, ballocks," said Badan.
"In Atthia herself, near the Mere of Stars where—"
Abruptly, Berchard's mouth hung open. A tall, narrow figure had stepped from the dark and now stood as still and black as a storm-blasted tree. Every knight leapt to his feet, drawing steel. The fire luffed in the silence.
"You've minstrels at your feast, brother." It was Lord Moryn, looking leaner still without the bulk of his armor.
"Brother," acknowledged Lamoric.
"Your man Coensar was at the feast this evening."
Lamoric inclined his head, his expression wary. "Yes, brother."
"I watched your man."
Durand saw Coensar shift, slouching behind his snake's gleam.
"Did you?" Lamoric prompted.
Lord Moryn moved a step closer to the fire, forcing Lamoric's men to give way. Though he was tall and grave, his face had ballooned around the tight seam of his right eye.
"Aye," Moryn affirmed. "And he watched Kandemar the Herald until the ancient drew the Tern Gyre roll from his satchel."
Durand leaned closer, feeling the Knight in Red secret being teased apart.
"I expect he was interested," murmured Lamoric.
"There was a look on your man's face when the company stood over the roll, peering down at the blazon painted there. He took in every shield called to the prince's tournament. Then he spun on his heel and marched from the feasting hall."
"Aye?" It was a sour word.
What had the man discovered?
"Your red shield," Moryn said, "it is not there. I have run my finger down the list myself. Despite the Knight in Red's victory under the eyes of half the peers of Errest, he has not been summoned to the prince's tournament at Tern Gyre. And if there were ever a stage for a man to show himself better than most believe, it is Tern Gyre. But if he is not on the roll, the Knight in Red cannot join the peers."
Moryn stopped, the fire's glow lapping at his surcoat. This was Lamoric's game, and he had lost it.
But Moryn pressed on. "A second thought."
"As many as that?"
"Our season is at an end. No more opportunities remain for the Knight in Red to attract the Herald's eye. Red Winding is—was—the last tournament of note before the great and the chosen gather at the Gyre."
"You amaze me," said Lamoric.
Moryn raised an eyebrow.
"And you are on the point of abandoning this Knight in Red game as a lost cause: all the silver you've wagered, everything you must have sold, and everyone you've bought to be here, lost. You are waiting the right time to tell these men that you must scatter them to the four winds even as the winter moons come upon us."
The men around the campfire shifted uneasily. A few turned their attention on Lamoric.
Moryn had them all in his fist, Durand included. "And yet?" Lamoric pressed.
"It is the custom of my house to hold a small tournament each year at a hunting lodge on the River Glass: High Ashes. It is fought in one week's time."
"I had never thought that you, of all men, would bid me to return to your father's domain."
"If your brother had not spoken for you, you would still be there now." Dead.
"It is not so large an affair," said Lamoric. High Ashes would be a brawl among Moryn's future liegemen.
"And still," said Moryn, "the Herald of Errest will be there."
"You will excuse me if I was under the impression that High Ashes was a tournament for your father's men. Friends. A private thing."
"And yet it has been arranged."
"I must take your word."
Lord Moryn let the statement hang between them. "You wish another chance to prove your mettle. If I wish my chance at your red helm," Moryn concluded, "I must furnish the opportunity."
"A chance to reforge my honor where it was broken?" was Lamoric's wry reply.
"We leave in the morning. The melee begins at dawn six days hence. I tell you plainly: You will provide me my chance, and you will not best me a second time."
Lamoric got to his feet, seizing Sir Moryn's hand. "I will see you at High Ashes."
The fire shivered in Moryn's one good eye.
THE CONFRONTATION KILLED their little feast and had the men sitting with their mouths shut. Durand watched a furious Lamoric for a while—this was not the best time for confessions—then took himself off and spread his bedroll over the ruts. For a few moments, he crouched there alone, beyond the reach of muted conversations.
The Red Knight business was a new thing. He wondered at the bad blood between Lamoric and this Lord of Mornaway. There had been whispers about the wedding when the host rode for Hallow Down. And secrets tended to slip out.
Durand winced at the thought. Images roiled up: hunchbacked Radomor and his Rooks, Alwen in the tower stair, the girl and her snakes.
The last silhouettes at the fireside kicked out the embers and straggled off toward their tents. One walked toward Durand.
"I saw you with my prisoner." The voice was Coensar's. Durand imagined that he could see the captain's eyes like two new pennies in the shadow. "You had no sword." He jabbed a long blade into the turf. It swayed. "This one's yours. You'll need it before long."
Durand glanced back to the man's face, but the captain had already turned. Durand reached for the sword, gripping it hard before sliding it into his gear. He tried not to think of his own secret. He felt the unsteady gratitude of a castaway whose raft skids onto an alien shore.
LYING THERE IN the ruts, Durand dreamed: The darkness was heavy with the scent of water. Night breezes moved through willows. He stood on a riverbank.
The muck mashed between his toes. He wore only his linens: a long tunic and his breeches.
A river, like ink under the moon, curled off into wooded darkness a few hundred paces away. Something winked out there. A faint light was moving on the waves, drifting closer. In a few moments, he made out the profile of a skiff against the slippery glints of the water. Low above the gunnels, a single candle flickered.
The prow of the boat turned with the course of the river. Something about the scene probed the locks of his memory. The blond lines of the gunnels looked like something carved by a maker of mandoras or lyres.
Then he saw her—a flared cuff, a drape of white sleeve.
Without a thought, Durand stepped down into the river slime. She lay with the candle clasped in small hands. Her skin glowed as pale and soft as a dove's throat. He could feel the cold weight of the river, chest deep.
And the boat was passing him by. He reached, straining his fingertips into the path of the craft, but it was no use. Veils of weed caught his fingers. Dark curls tumbled over the square stern. He thought he knew the place now. This was the Maidensbier. A story. Her name was lost to him, but she was the maiden of the river's name. It was an old story. Standing in the water, watching the retreating skiff, he put his hands over his face.
Here, the story was real. This was the Lady of Gireth, wife to Gunderic, the founding duke, who had fallen in love with one of his lieutenants. Loving both and wishing harm to neither, she lived a precarious summer until the duke's shield-bearer stumbled on the lovers where they lay by the riverbank. The shield-bearer was a steadfast man bound by strong oaths to keep no secrets from his master, though compassion compelled him to wait for the morning. Durand watched as the skiff carried on, and knew that this was that long night.
They said that the girl drank foxglove, setting herself adrift upon the river, finally to pass below the walls of the duke's capital. Afterward, Duke Gunderic and his line abandoned that first capital and took his court to Acconel, far to the west. The skiff was almost out of sight. He could still just make out the fan of black curls—dark as sable.
The loyal shield-bearer, as Durand recalled, was made first Baron of Col: a spot as far from Acconel as could be found. His shield bore the three stags.
A SECOND TIME he woke, like a drowning man breaking the skin of a lake.
He found a different darkness: one of ruts and chill drizzle. His sopping blanket lay over him like dead flesh. In his first blinking moments, the dream rain and mud and memories of women explained the dream away. He lifted his hand. A green veil of slimy weed trailed from his fingers.
Then voices reminded him that he was not alone.
Beyond the tents, a white shape drifted through the gloom.
As in the dream, he was in motion without thought, tripping through guy ropes.
Someone—a dark shape now—stood in his path.
Durand and the stranger staggered apart, and a sword whisked from its scabbard. Durand's new blade was rolled up in the blankets somewhere in the mud behind him.
"Hold there," Durand gasped.
"Oh, it's the new man, Durand, yes?" It was Lamoric's voice, rattled and breathless. "I don't—Watch yourself. The latrine trench isn't far off." He said nothing for a moment, hanging like a specter in the dark. "With the rain you don't smell it."
"I thought I saw—"
"She's dead."
"What?"
"My sister." The man was fumbling his sword into its scabbard. "You grew up at Acconel..."
"Alwen." He fought to keep the horror snaking through him from reaching his voice.
"I—I can hardly say it. They've found her. In the river. Drifting past the citadel at Acconel, then off for Silvermere. It is not possible. It has to be a mistake. My father. There was a priest writing for her every week. It will kill him."
Durand wondered about the white shape he had seen. Was there a messenger out here in the dark or someone else who shared the same midnight vision?
"You knew her?" Lamoric said.
"She was older than I," Durand stammered. "Married."
"Ten winters, aye. To Radomor of Yrlac. And now she's in the river. What in the Hells does it mean?"
Though Durand knew, he did not answer. The .Rooks had sent her home. "She is on her way to her dower lands in Gireth," they had said.