Tournament Prize

by Ling, Maria

  Privately, Alan demurred. Matilda, beside him, held that honour. But he wouldn't say so, for she'd likely respond by punching him in the mouth.

  His dream woman, he concluded, had best not be a fighter too.

  "Nicely done," he told Roland, who returned with fire in his eyes and breathing fast. The heckler had proved a skilful opponent.

  Roland grunted, drank deep from his tankard, settled with a sigh. Grinned, now, as the heat of battle faded. "Thank you."

  Alan glanced across at the herald, who had given up the attempt to enthuse the crowd, and was quietly enjoying a meal at the corner table. Better luck in the next town, or the next.

  But there might be a fair turnout from here, after all. Not much of a ride, and the promise of gold to be won.

  "So," Alan said. "Worth taking the offer?"

  Roland shrugged. Guillaume nodded. Matilda said: "I'm in."

  They all looked at Geoffrey. Who grimaced, and said: "It's a small place."

  "Good family," Guillaume said. "Not rich, but solid. Charles was a fighter himself at one time. He'll put on a fine challenge, if no great show, and there will be knights enough to take for ransom. Worth our while."

  Geoffrey considered, then shrugged.

  "Excellent." Alan felt suddenly exhilarated, for no earthly reason he could grasp. "Let's see who gets that kiss from the ravishing Maid Caroline."

  ***

  CHAPTER 2

  "Yes, I dare say they're all very suitable." Caroline suppressed a sigh. "But I can't say much else about them, since I don't know any of them at all. And I can't find out, since you won't let me speak."

  "Don't be silly, dear." Madeline adjusted her daughter's gold-embroidered belt. "You look neat and pleasant, and that is enough. Kindly restrict your remarks to weather and terrain."

  Caroline scowled at the wall, beyond which lay familiar fields and pastures. "I don't have much to say about either."

  "So much the better. Come along, now. We'll meet those within first, those without later. Ordinarily there would be no need -- our neighbours are well able to care for the visitors at the other camp. But since the whole point of this event is for you to meet eligible men, we double your chances by feasting both within and without."

  Caroline pulled a face. Her father had tutored her with unaccustomed patience in the complexities of a tournament. The site lay close to a manor boundary, where de Louvain lands bordered those of a neighbouring lord. A village on this side served as base for the defenders, a nearby one on the neighbour's side for the attackers. Men arrived from all over the region, were assigned to either party and then lodged at the chosen base -- in lofts and barns and private rooms, or camping out in tents.

  Sunday's jousting and other displays would be held to the south, on de Louvain land, with the victory celebrations at their home manor house itself. After that, the men would all return to their lodgings and make ready. Monday's tournament would begin with the attackers marching in order to the defenders' base, where they would issue formal challenge and hostilities would commence. The ensuing battle could range far and wide, taking in all the land between the two villages and probably some adjoining settlements as well. By nightfall, the side that had successfully broken through to the enemy base would be deemed victorious, or if neither had succeeded a draw would be declared.

  The celebrations would be held in a field at the back of the defenders' base, set aside for the purpose and defended by earthen ramparts set with wooden stakes. She would name and reward the selected champion -- chosen by her parents, naturally -- and he would be her companion at table during the feast that followed. Her task was to eat, simper at any suitable bachelors, and then be taken home.

  After which, if her father's accounts were to be believed, the drinking and feasting and general mayhem would go on until morning.

  It all sounded deadly dull. Caroline fought to show a semblance of polite interest, and promised herself an hour of solitary reading as soon as she could snatch it.

  "Those without are the defenders, is that correct?" she said now, as her mother led her down the stairs.

  "My dear!"

  "I meant the attackers," Caroline said quickly. "Sorry, Mother. Those without attack. Those within defend." She repeated that verse a dozen times under her breath, to make sure she got it right.

  They emerged into the hall, festive with hung shields and garlands, hot with a press of bodies. Caroline quailed and slowed her step, but her mother dragged her forward. A herald announced them. Father emerged beaming from a group of brightly-dressed men who cast indifferent eyes over her and then resumed their conversation.

  "Well, my dear, it's good to see you looking so fine. Let me introduce you." He tucked her hand under his arm and and pulled her along, uttered her name in delighted tones to a succession of indistinguishable men. Caroline feigned polite interest, saw it reflected in one man's face after another, stopped caring over much about the whole event. She wasn't going to meet anyone here, that was already obvious. The best she could do was please her parents by smiling and saying nothing, and waiting the whole thing out.

  "My God!" her father exclaimed suddenly. "Guillaume, my boy! It's good to see you again."

  A group of men and women opened up to include them both. Charles launched into immediate and animated conversation with a dark feral-looking knight flanked by a sturdy lady and a somewhat slighter man. Caroline smiled vapidly at the latter, because he stood next to her and it cost nothing to be courteous.

  "Delighted to make your acquaintance," the man said.

  "We're not actually acquainted yet," Caroline replied without thinking. "I don't even know your name." Then she winced, and kicked herself. She wasn't supposed to talk.

  The man laughed. "Sorry. Alan de la Falaise. These are my companions." He rattled off names that meant nothing to her, gestured too fast for her to attach them to the right faces. So she just smiled and nodded at random, and managed to miss everyone's eye.

  "We're looking forward to tomorrow," the sturdy lady said. She wasn't fat, Caroline realised, just well muscled and rather tall. Alan, beside her, looked a slighter man than he was. In truth, he stood a little taller than Caroline herself, and appeared strong-shouldered if lean under the evening-blue tunic with its silvered belt.

  They all offered pleasant agreement to the remark, though Alan was the only one who showed a flash of real enthusiasm. "Jousting is my favourite pastime," he said. "Charging about on muddy slopes can be entertaining enough, granted, but I like a little more formality."

  "Should have stayed in the youths' games," another man taunted. Dark also, vivid-eyed, with a lady beside him who showed a distinct rounding of the belly. "Who let you out among the men, boy?"

  "Come over here and say that," Alan replied, and they scuffled like children.

  "I trust you'll defend us well," Caroline said, only half joking. The two men separated amicably, and grinned at her.

  "We'll do our best," the man with the lady promised. Caroline tried to remember his name.

  "If the weather doesn't work against us," Alan said. "It promises heavy rain, and if it lasts I don't like the lower fields. Be a mudbath once the horses have charged across it."

  "What do you think of the terrain?" Caroline asked, still working to untangle the flurry of syllables. Roland, she thought, because he'd had a wife with a name that sounded like a sneeze, and she was almost sure the sturdy lady was Matilda.

  "I just told you," Alan said. "But if you really want the full story -- ?" He watched Caroline with an air of expectation.

  Caroline gave him a bewildered nod. That was the signal for a torrent of observations that made as little sense to her as Father's endless reminiscing about men she'd never met. The others joined in with enthusiasm, Father and the feral-looking one -- Guillaume, she must try to remember that -- foremost among them.

  "I see," Caroline said at intervals, and "Oh, yes," and "Of course." Eventually the torrent slowed.

  "But I mus
t speak with my other guests," Father concluded. "Do enjoy yourselves, lads. Best of luck for tomorrow." He caught Caroline by the arm and led her away.

  "Don't tell your mother," he muttered after a few steps. "I rather forgot myself there. Let's find you some eligible men."

  "I liked them," Caroline argued.

  "Oh, Guillaume's a fine lad. Pity he's already married. Though she's a fine-looking woman, that Matilda, one can't really blame him. His friend Geoffrey, now..." Father slowed, half turned, cast a glance behind. "You could do worse than marry Geoffrey, my dear."

  "Which one was that?" She vaguely recalled pale grey eyes and a faint smile somewhere. But when she half turned likewise, it was Alan she saw, standing a little to one side -- part of the group but not quite one of them.

  He glanced up as she watched, met her eye directly. A shiver passed through her, head to foot, unrolling through her limbs and nails and every hair on her head.

  "Good family," Father mused. "Sound connections. Yes, you could do a lot worse."

  "What of his companions?" Caroline said faintly. Her voice seemed caught in her throat, snagged on some errant branch of her heart. "Roland and... " -- she held her breath, tried to stop the smile that wanted to bloom across her face -- "…Alan."

  "Don't know much about either. Alan's a little younger, I think. I did find the byname familiar, but I can't quite recall why." Father pulled her along with renewed strength. "Now here's a fine lord for you, recently come into his inheritance. Good hard hand on the tourney field, too. So I've heard. Make yourself pleasant, girl."

  Caroline did her best to comply. But her attention strayed, and strayed again, until she had to plead weariness from so much excitement. The lord gave her a supercilious look and went on talking to Father about the recent spat between two bishops. He took entirely the wrong view of it, but Caroline held firm to her promise and kept her mouth closed.

  An altercation over by the opposite end of the hall drew her notice. Guillaume was arguing with some nondescript knight or other. Roland and Matilda held him back by one arm each, while Geoffrey made placating gestures. The knight sneered, right in Guillaume's face. He tore free -- and Alan stepped out right in front of him, easy and relaxed, as if they were dancing, and faced down the alien knight. Who wavered, glanced from man to man, found them presenting a united front. Then offered a frosty bow and withdrew.

  "Isn't it, my dear?" Father said.

  "Oh yes," Caroline replied absently. She couldn't stop watching Alan, who dodged a blow from Guillaume, sidestepped with the elegance of a fine palfrey, shook his head in remonstration. Laid one hand on Guillaume's shoulder, smiled and spoke. Roland and Matilda joined forces to haul Guillaume away, while Alan turned to Geoffrey with a shrug.

  The whole thing was over in moments. But it stayed with her. Something about the way Alan had moved -- the lightness of it, the smooth easy glide, as if he were not concerned at all. She would have been, Guillaume and the knight had looked as if about to set to with their fists -- or worse, with daggers or even their swords. That happened, too: Mother had told her. Said the best thing a woman could do in such circumstances was stand well back and hope sense prevailed.

  He'd looked, she thought at last, as if he could handle anything at all. As if nothing was worth losing his composure over. It seemed oddly reassuring.

  Not that it mattered, really. She wouldn't meet him again.

  Caroline forced her attention back to the uninterested and uninteresting man Father kept pushing her at. A lord de Rous, she recalled -- finely dressed and twice her age, who leered at her chest and spoke only to Father. Ghastly man.

  "Damned bad luck," he said now. "Saddled with all those girls. Find husbands for them, and they'll at least be out of your way."

  "No hurry," Father said. "It's good to have company at home."

  Lord de Rous smirked at Caroline. "Who's getting this fancy piece, then?"

  "I am not a piece," Caroline flared up. "I am a human being, same as you."

  "Ooof." His eyes widened in mockery. "She has a mouth on her, spoiled little baggage."

  "I'm afraid so," Father said. "Never mind." He glared at her -- she'd hear plenty about this afterwards, no doubt about that. "Run along to your mother, girl. It's time we were all at table."

  Caroline retreated, clutching what shreds of dignity she could. Loathsome, hideous man.

  Too wrapped in her anger to pay proper attention to where she stepped, she blundered against a firm shoulder and found herself gently caught by both arms and steadied.

  "I do ask your pardon," a man said. "Clumsy of me."

  "Don't touch me!" Caroline snapped back, hot with embarrassment and rage.

  The grip vanished at once. She glared up, to find Alan de la Falaise watching her with deep concern. "Forgive my impertinence," he said. "Has something happened to distress you?"

  "No." Caroline turned her back on him. She really couldn't deal with this. Then reason caught up with emotion, and fairness with rage. She turned back, and found to her relief that he still stood there -- hadn't made a move of any kind. "I'm sorry. A man was extremely rude to me, and I responded in kind. I'm still seething, to tell you the truth. Best keep away until I've cooled off."

  "Anyone I can disembowel for you?" Alan replied. "Say the word."

  Despite herself, laughter bubbled in her throat. "No. Thank you. It would be impolite of me to murder a guest."

  "You would of course be innocent and entirely ignorant of the affair."

  Caroline smiled, relief dancing through her limbs. "Too late now."

  Alan snapped his fingers. "Damn. I must learn to think more quickly before I speak." He leaned forward a little, just close enough to lower his voice. "I won't ask what happened. But if you would like any sort of assistance, I am at your service. These meetings can get rather thronged, and I observe that your parents are fully occupied in greeting their friends."

  Which was a tactful way of putting it. Caroline scowled at her mother, engaged in animated discussion with several beautifully gowned ladies, and at her father, who stood surrounded by grey-haired men.

  Serve the pair of them right, Caroline thought, if she took up with the most unsuitable man in the room.

  "I would be very happy with your company," she said. "If you have any interest in theology and the natural world."

  Alan's face lit up as if she'd declared a passion for jousting. "What do you think of Avicenna?"

  "God!" Caroline burst out. "I never think of him at all if I can help it. His 'floating man' idea -- what arrant nonsense! How could one be aware without anything to be aware of?"

  "But one would be aware of the self, surely," Alan argued. "That would be present for examination, and so knowable, which is precisely his thesis."

  "But with nothing to distinguish it against, how could one become aware of it as a thing in itself? Utterly impossible."

  Alan grinned. "I don't disagree with you. His treatise on medicine is sound, though. Got some good notions of diet and exercise."

  "Oh," Caroline said vaguely. "I don't think I'm familiar with those aspects." She dimly recalled one of her tutors discussing the topic with her father, but mostly with reference to soldiery, which did not interest her.

  "If I may solicit the pleasure," Alan said, "I can fill you in on nearly all of it. My tutor made me memorise the whole damn thing. Said it would be more use to me than any other book, not even excepting the Bible. He was right, too. I won't say I've been led astray by it, but I do watch myself at Mass. Too easy to start reciting preparations for exertion instead of devout prayers."

  "You poor man," Caroline said, choking back laughter.

  "Whereas you appear to be of a theological bent," Alan observed. "Quite right, too. I don't imagine you'd have much need for knowledge of wrestling and spear-throwing."

  "Not a great deal," Caroline admitted.

  "Do you ride?"

  "On occasion."

  "The section on horsemanship is worthy of
study. But what of other thinkers? Anselm, perhaps, and his proofs of the existence of God. What do you say to those?"

  "I say they're unconvincing," Caroline declared, and began to refute the first one point by point. Alan listened intently, nodded occasional agreement, murmured a few objections.

  Caroline was so deeply immersed in the discussion that she jumped when her mother appeared before her, rigid with disapproval.

  "There you are! Come to table at once." Madeline turned a benevolent smile on Alan. "Please forgive my daughter, sir. She is rather apt to talk."

  "I enjoyed it," Alan said.

  Madeline stared at him. "You did? That is... most kind and courteous." She hesitated for a moment. "I do not believe we are acquainted."

  Alan introduced himself, and added some light platitudes on the excellence of the tourney arrangements. Caroline fidgeted, and wished she had managed to reach the second proof.

  "Allow me to wish you great success," Madeline said, "both tomorrow and the day after."

  Alan bowed, and saw them on their way. Caroline glanced back to find him already claimed by his friends, but still with a smile and a watchful look to spare for her. Which made her happy, though she didn't know why.

  "Charming young man," Madeline said. "I don't know who he is, though. Must ask around. Well done, my dear. But no more talking, understand? You are to be pleasant company for the next few days."

  "He said he liked it," Caroline pointed out. "And so did I."

  "He was merely being polite. And you are not here to enjoy yourself. Remember that."

  Caroline trudged after her mother, until she reached her assigned seat and realised with a sinking of the heart that she was right next to the ghastly lord de Rous. Who smirked at her, and then lost himself entirely in wagers on the next day's outcome. Caroline listened with half an ear, until the name of 'de la Falaise' caught her attention.