by S E Zbasnik
Frederick rolled his tongue through his mouth, sizing up the competition. After folding his arms safely to his chest, the man snickered. “Prove it. Go on. Find me a witness. A credible witness that will back up whatever…what was it? That I assaulted, no raped. You went straight to raped my squire. Why? Because she’s pretty? Because she clothes herself in the tightest attire possible? I didn’t realize that was my fault, and my damnation.”
Rushing right into his face, Gavin kept his fists at the side, but his teeth snapped. Every person watching cringed, terrified that this could spill over into a larger brawl to encompass the entire camp. But the only cool head wouldn’t hear of it. Erin slapped her hands once more as if she was trying to train an errant bull.
“Squire?” She turned to the two girls. Hayley pointed at her chest, but the woman’s eyes cut straight to Larissa. “Is what the Knight-Captain claiming true?”
“Oh God,” Larissa crumpled in an instant. Her head hung low as her nails scrabbled over the back of her hands. She clawed up the pretty skin, her perfect teeth chewing a hole in her lip. “N-n-n,” her voice bounced around and, even as she nodded her head vigorously, she spat out, “No.”
“Ha,” Frederick crowed.
“I see,” Erin pronounced to the crowd. “Then this has been a misunderstanding.”
A misunderstanding?! Look at her! Anyone who met Larissa knew she never acted like that. Never scrunched up in fear, or practically wet herself while talking to a knight. Day one she was talking back to the Knight-Captain, now she was a puddle on the ground and everyone looked the other way.
Shit. They were going to turn away. Just go back to the way things were. It was another rumor to add to the pile. For a breath, Hayley’s eyes met with Larissa’s and the last thing she ever thought she’d feel for the viper overwhelmed her gut: fear. What the hell would Frederick do once the eyes closed and the public bodies drifted away?
“This is your fault,” Larissa snarled under her breath, practically evaporating any emotion Hayley felt. God help her, Larissa was right. If Hayley’d kept her mouth shut then none of this would have happened.
“There,” Frederick shoved Gavin’s hands away with a shrug and stepped towards the middle of the crowd. “You can all return to your tents. Nothing to see here.”
It was over. Just like that. No one cared, no one would even glance back. It’d be a rumor, as solid as all the other ones.
Don’t be stupid, Hayseed. You know there’s no such thing as justice. Bad guys win, good guys die. Her fingers gripped onto her cap, tugging it tighter and tighter to her head. Good guys die a lot.
“I challenge him,” Gavin’s voice whispered from his hung head. That drew everyone’s eyes, and after a beat, he raised his chin high. The amber glare burned into Erin’s. “A trial by combat. I challenge Ser Frederick to prove by God’s all mighty grace that he…he is not guilty of such a crime.”
“Gavin, that’s…”
“Fine,” Frederick interrupted. “You want to do this? You want to drag this out, spill it into the streets, and walk away with wounds and bruises? You want to build it into some mountainous issue?”
“It is.”
“Then let’s fight,” Frederick snarled. “Time and place?” He sounded so nonchalant as if the pair would only be sparring. As if he didn’t care one whit about the charges against him.
Gavin stood up taller, the muscles in his neck bulging as he cracked it. “Here and now.”
“No,” Erin tried to wedge in between them, but neither man was backing down. “We need time. I’m not even certain if this is allowed at the Grand Tourney. The Knight-Commander…”
“Isn’t here!” both men spat at her.
Whispers rose in the people circling around, barely audible — the voices crawled over Hayley’s skin until she started itching at it. All of the knights who’d been willing to turn away, to slink back to their tents and forget this happened, were starting to press in closer.
“You know what,” Frederick snarled, “we are doing this now. I want my name cleared and none of this to be ever spoken of again.”
Gavin blinked slowly and raised his head. “We shall see.”
“For the love of…” Erin sighed, but she lost all control of the situation. “Very well, will there be time to armor up or…No? No, of course not. Pick your damn weapons and let us finish this quickly.”
To Hayley’s surprise, her knight selected not a sturdy sword or mace but a single dagger. He passed it back and forth in his palms, tipping the knife downward, while Frederick chose the same sword he always kept at his side. Erin swept around the area, digging a circle in the dirt with the toe of her boot. As she stepped near the two squires, her head lifted to take in Larissa.
The girl was rooted in place, her hands flush to her thighs as she stared at nothing. For a moment, Erin’s jaw opened as if she wanted to comfort her, but then she skirted the circle in front of Larissa — trapping the girl at the heart of this outside. Hayley remained too. She was the only person who seemed willing to stand anywhere close to Larissa as the two men walked towards the center of the impromptu ring.
There was no handshake, no declaration of the rules, no jangle of bells. It was two mad dogs snarling in rage at each other before the first swipe. Gavin drew his taller form lower to the ground as if he had some intentions to bull rush Frederick, but his feet didn’t shift. It was Frederick who began to slide, both his footing and arms twisting the sword this way and that as he tried to get a sense of how best to attack.
When Gavin raised his head, those amber eyes of judgment cutting through Frederick, the man on trial shrieked and slashed forward. All of his weight was in that attack, Gavin barely parrying each thrust with his tiny dagger while dancing backwards on his feet.
“This. Is. Foolish!” Frederick screamed with every shattering clap of metal. Hayley flinched at each touch of their weapons, her hands clasped together as she prayed for Gavin to win. Why did he choose that stupid little dagger?
Frederick kept pressing his advantage, chasing Gavin around the ring the same way Larissa did Hayley. “You’re proving nothing, you imbecile!” Frederick shouted. He lashed his sword out fast and cut it clean over Gavin’s hip. The knight gasped in pain and blood welled up through the trousers.
These weren’t blunted?! Hayley whipped her head over to Erin, about to ask what the hell they were doing with sharpened weapons, but the Knight-Captain only looked grim. She didn’t rush to Gavin’s aid or shout Frederick stupid for that. If anything, all the other knights just stood there dumbly waiting for God to choose who was right. Who was just. This was so stupid.
Gavin suckered his hand to the wound for but a second before he blocked another one of Frederick’s swings. “I trusted you,” he muttered as if to himself, the same way he’d whisper while talking to God. “I believed in you. I ignored every single tremor in my gut because you were my friend.”
“Nothing’s changed!” Frederick screamed. The spark of metal on metal came so fast Hayley could barely keep up, Gavin twisting back and forth on his heels as if he didn’t take a single cut to his body. “You’d put your faith in the lips of some gossiping harpy? All their kind know is lies, especially yours.”
Hayley gulped deep, aware of the eyes swinging to her. How many knew of her past? How many were about to ask about it and share that knowledge as far as the sea?
“Shut your mouth,” Gavin snarled. Frederick lunged far, so far he had to throw his foot forward to do it. Spinning in place, Gavin hurled the attack to the dirt, then rammed his elbow deep into Frederick’s gut. That crumpled the man, a gasp of air erupting from his mouth. Frederick didn’t fall to this knees, but he staggered away while Gavin loomed over him.
“Confess,” he ordered. “Confess the truth already. Stop lying. Stop hurting those who don’t deserve it!”
“Oh,” Frederick coughed, a hand swiping at saliva pooling on the side of his mouth, “I get it. You’d put all your trust in that bag of stick
s you call a squire. Throw away everything between us, cause you’re screwing yours.”
Gavin erupted, the cold exterior burning in rage. The man who’d tried to do right by all lashed not his dagger for Frederick but his empty fist. It aimed to try and shatter the bastard’s nose permanently, but a blur rose up from the side. Rocketing from the ground, Frederick bashed his pommel straight into Gavin’s forearm.
A crunch impeded the silence. Every whisper died, every head whipped to the knight whose fist of vengeance plummeted in agony. Gavin screamed in pain, his body instinctively sliding away while Frederick rose chuckling.
“You always were too slow. Talk all you want about skill, but it’s might that wins. And it’s divine right that guides me!”
Shit! Frederick hefted his sword up, the grip huddled just under his armpit, and the end aimed right for Gavin’s heaving chest. Her knight was struggling with his broken arm, his face contorted in pain. There was no chance he could block this, no chance he could do anything. Frederick was going to kill him.
“Please…” Hayley whimpered, but her voice was drowned out by the roar of the crowd. No one was happy about what was happening, no one wanted it to happen. Someone had to stop this. Erin?
The Knight-Captain stepped forward, her eyes on Gavin. When he raised his weary head, it wasn’t capitulation that burned inside the look. With a tip of his head to communicate something, Erin staggered back in place outside the arena as if this was all part of his stupid plan. As if he had to risk his life for Larissa. She wasn’t worth it!
“Take it back,” Frederick hissed, “take back what you said. What you claimed. Take back everything you thought. I’m not a monster! You know me, you all know me.”
A cough rose up Gavin’s throat. With great strain, he tucked his broken arm in tight to his chest to protect it. Watching his struggle made Hayley flinch, and — to her surprise —Frederick as well. The man was pacing, clearly not wanting to strike his best friend when the sword began to tremble.
“Frederick,” Gavin sputtered once more before he lifted his head and amber justice burned inside his eyes, “confess your sins.”
“AAAHHH!” Frederick’s sword burst forward, the entire tip about to rip through Gavin’s flesh and slice apart his heart. Hayley dug her fingers tight to her legs, scared to watch, but more terrified to look away. Every breath was held as the beloved knight, Ser Gavin, was about to be cut in half by a rapist.
A foot lashed out at the side, striking the side of Frederick’s knee. It threw off the aim, the deadly sword’s edge slicing to the side of Gavin’s ribs, but the man didn’t even blink. With blood wicking from the wound, he drew his dagger to first bounce against the sword, then slice straight up Frederick’s belly.
The man tried to leap back to avoid it, but the kick to his knee seized it up, dragging him lower into the dirt. Gavin bashed away the sword again, and — on the swing back — buried the pommel of his dagger into Frederick’s nose. Gasping in more blood, Frederick’s head snapped away and Gavin leapt forward.
With one knee pinned to Frederick’s chest, Gavin knocked the man onto his back and held the dagger’s edge right against his throat. “Confess!” Gavin screamed again. “Confess the truth or I will kill you.”
“Don’t…don’t think you’ve…” Frederick’s hands were pawing at the ground, trying to find his sword, but Gavin drove both his knee deeper into the man’s lungs and the dagger tighter to the shaven neck. It bruised the ribcage so much, when Gavin released the pressure, Frederick gasped like a dying fish.
“I dared to call you friend and you do this?! You betray not only me but the Order itself, for what? Why?! Why would you do it?!” Gavin screamed in the man’s face, spittle splattering into the blood bubbling out of Frederick’s nose. Hayley gulped at the raw agony in her knight which he was trying to burn off on his old friend.
“You’re wrong,” Frederick kept on, “I’m not a bad person. It’s not my doing. You’re wrong.”
“Confess,” Gavin ordered. The shrieking, almost terrified cries of whatever lurked inside of him faded away as her knight cloaked himself in the stoic shield he always wore. Cold eyes glared down into Frederick’s as he drew the dagger deeper. More blood welled up to coat the blade staining Gavin’s fingers. “Or you die now.”
Would he do it? Could he kill him? What would happen then? If this wasn’t sanctioned and he killed a fellow knight would they then try him? Kill him for doing what had to be done?
“I confess,” Frederick whispered.
“What?”
“I said I confess, you pompous…!” he tried to lash out with his hands but Gavin wouldn’t move. The dagger didn’t gouge his throat out even as his knee remained in place.
Turning to look over at the Knight-Captain, Gavin said, “What say you?”
Erin sucked in a breath almost as if she’d been fighting down tears the whole time. “Ser Frederick, on this day, confessed to the rape of his squire.”
With that, Gavin slid off the man. Frederick rolled away, leaping to his feet as he tried to mop up the blood dripping from his neck. Hayley watched Erin for a sign before she breached the circle and ran to her knight’s aid. The dagger fell to the dirt, Gavin having to wrap his hands around her shoulders as she tried to get him up out of the dirt.
“According to the rules of the Order, you will be stripped of your titles, Ser Frederick, and cast out,” Erin spoke as if she was reading the rules off a wall.
Frederick wasn’t listening to her, his bloody palm still swiping over the mess oozing from his body. Taking in a slow breath, the condemned man turned to glare at Gavin who would no longer meet his gaze. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” he snarled deep in his gut.
“What needed to be,” Gavin said. Out of the sides came other knights, burly ones to clamp onto Frederick’s arms and drag him off. Now they treated him like he was a problem, now they cared when it didn’t matter anymore. Hayley tried to get a grip on Gavin, but in doing so her hand skimmed near the elbow of the broken arm. His yelp of pain nearly shattered her.
Erin sighed, picking up Gavin’s limp hand. “Squeeze,” she ordered and he gave a limp flexing of his fingers. “God’s blood this is a mess. Go and fetch him a healer,” she ordered to Hayley. For a beat, she looked to her knight who bobbed his head that it’d be okay. What if they all decided to get vengeance for his attacking Frederick? What if…?
“Squire!” Erin thundered and Hayley dashed out, leaving the Knight-Captain to support the other. “Without Frederick, our numbers…”
“It had to be done,” Gavin insisted.
Hayley struggled to push through the masses that’d watched the challenge, none of them much caring about a skinny fifteen-year-old that had to get past. Behind her, she could hear Erin still carrying on as if kicking out a rapist was the real problem.
“What shall we do with his squire? I suppose I can fold her back in at the grounds, but…”
“She should not be punished for his sins,” Gavin’s voice thundered. Something in the tone caused Hayley to pause in her mission and look back. With his head held higher, the man said the words that’d doom Hayley’s life to an eternal hell. “I will take her on.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
He didn’t scream. Didn’t cry, or gnash his teeth as the healer set his bones and began to wind the bandages tighter around the useless arm. It’d heal in time the woman insisted, but not for weeks. Months maybe.
Hayley wanted to rip her hair out when they were told, but Gavin said nothing. Stone inside and out, all he could do was thank the woman that wrenched his skeleton back into place and ruined his life. She had no idea, a blush rising on her cheeks at the compliment paid by a handsome knight, but Hayley felt it. Her fist clawed at her chest, trying to rip free all the ribs crushing into her lungs. She felt as if she were drowning, her legs frozen in the pond and it wasn’t even her problem.
Her shattered but still whole knight took in a gulp of air, his eyes squeezed t
ight as he tried to take in the new world just outside the medical tent. A world where he challenged and proved his best friend to be a rapist. Whenever a distant roar from the arena would shudder the silent air Hayley trembled.
“Ser…” she began, not knowing what to say. If anything could be said to fix this. Weary amber eyes turned to her, waiting for any word to soothe this when the tent flap opened. White and blonde both blurred past, Hayley having to blink fast to spy Myra dashing inside. His wife took in Gavin’s state, the arm cinched tight to his chest, before she threw both her arms around his neck and prayed for God’s thanks.
“My…” Gavin whispered, his good hand circling to cup his wife’s back.
“I heard you were in a fight, you were hurt, and…god, tell me you’re okay,” she spat out fast.
Gavin’s hand slid up to her cheek, cupping the curve safe in his palm as he seemed entranced by her eyes. After holding his tongue, his tears, his armor in place, that one dip into his wife’s eyes shattered everything. Gasping from every hit to his body at once, he cried, “I’m so sorry!”
Fat tears Hayley hadn’t seen since Ser Cal’s death boiled over in her knight’s eyes. She shifted uncomfortably towards the door, unable to watch as he came undone in his wife’s arms. Myra was quicker to scoop him to her, their foreheads brushing together as she washed in her husband’s tears.
“You’re alive, okay,” she said.
“I can’t…I can’t fight now. I won’t be able to…”
“Shh.” Her finger graced his fallen lips, trying to silence the blame he marinated in. “It’s okay. We’ll, we’ll think of something. You’re still here, with me. That’s all that matters right now.”
“God,” Gavin gasped and Hayley could take no more. As her knight buried his sinking head into Myra’s lap, she dashed for the exit. The air stank of rot, like a hill of decomposing vegetable skins at the height of summer. She wrapped her hands around her chest, trying to find a breath that didn’t reek. Eyes all around her watched. They didn’t last long, but they kept tight on that squire attached to the knight who just banished one of their own.