“Never mind, Lyndon. Many’s the time I’ve broken lances with five opponents in a day. One more upstart with a self-important sense of his own mystery should be easy enough to handle.”
“But your honor, Sir Prosper. Up against one who has fought unfairly? If it were battle, where it is kill or be killed, and no questions, that would be one thing. But a tournament is, after all, sport, and I do not believe that Sir Gabriel Androctus has fought altogether . . .”
“Enough, Lyndon!” storms Sir Prosper. “You think this is still sport, while Orban is lying dead in a wagon at his tents, his attendants and squire weeping and assembling his belongings? How would you like to be that squire and have to tell old Alban of Kern that his son died in a tournament run under arms courteous and the killer went on to win the prize?
“No, Sir Lyndon,” Prosper concludes. “Sir Gabriel Androctus fights once more this afternoon, and by the Order, I mean to see that he loses.”
Now is the time of emissaries to the tent. For Sir Robert sends a messenger in secret to Gabriel Androctus, asking that the final joust be postponed until the following morning. Then, he maintains, a brief period of mourning for Sir Orban may be observed before his entourage leaves with the body for Kern. Though this is certainly in Sir Robert’s mind when he asks for the postponement, there is also the hope that a night’s rest will help Sir Prosper set aside fatigue and stiffness—that morning will find him battle fit and ready to consign this Gabriel Androctus back to whatever pit of snakes he had crawled out of to attend this tournament. It is not to be.
The answer returns, scrawled on a note in a bold and flashing script—the writing of an artist, no doubt, or of a man assured in his resources and afraid of nothing.
Nonsense. Why should we change procedure at the whim of a corpse?
The tournament must continue. Sir Prosper drew a worthy adversary this morning; I, an unworthy one. Such are the lots in tournament. As I recall, he picked his first from the helmet. Such are the rules you established. Follow them.
Seated at the desk in his chambers, Sir Robert reads the note he has been handed. He dismisses the messenger, and when the boy leaves, reads it again.
He sighs deeply and in resignation. He holds the note above a guttering candle and watches it catch fire in the last breath of the wick. He holds the burning note as long as he can before casting the withering paper onto the hearth.
So the last tilt of the tournament begins, and still there is time left to see the hopes of Sir Robert di Caela rise and fall and rise, only to fall again.
For as always, in the long, tedious preparation of Knights that precedes the announcements and the proffering of lances, Sir Robert scans the horizon—almost by reflex now, for he has given up hope of seeing Sir Bayard Brightblade approach from the foot of the Vingaard Mountains.
And yet . . .
What is that, stirring the dust some several miles to the west, there where the plains fade into purple at the edge of the foothills?
The stirring of dust nears and resolves itself into a figure on horseback, riding full tilt for the castle. As the figure draws nearer, out of the shadow of the mountains to where it catches the sunlight, Sir Robert sees the unmistakable glint of distant armor.
Brightblade?
By Huma’s blood, would that it were so! For if it is, he is Gabriel Androctus’s next opponent. It will be hours of argument with that rule-bound precisian Androctus, hours of searching for precedent in the Solamnic Measure of Knighthood. I would not be surprised if the Hooded Knight insists that the castle scribes and priests and scholars search all thirty-seven volumes of the Measure, Sir Robert thinks. But even if I lose the appeal to the Measure, I will buy valuable time for Prosper.
That is, of course, if the figure on the road is Brightblade.
Sir Robert raises his hand, calls a halt to the preparations. A rider approaches, he announces. Approaches rapidly from the west. These are troubled times, when a rapidly approaching rider may signal uprising, invasion, or the gods know what. In light of the times and the situation, then, he requests that “the two remaining contestants stay the first pass for but a little while, until the rider arrives and we know if there is pressing business at hand or” . . . and Robert di Caela laughs . . . “or if it’s simply a young man late for a good seat at the final tilt.”
Prosper of Zeriak nods politely.
Androctus, on the other hand, is not pleased. He sends message by his hooded squire that the final tilt was scheduled for this hour, and that if Sir Robert is a man of his word, the tilt will begin as scheduled. This is too much. Sir Robert leans forward in his chair and shouts at the squire.
“Tell your Knight, Gabriel Androctus, that I called this tournament together on my lands. At my expense. For the hand of my daughter. And given that arrangement, tell Gabriel Androctus . . .”
With that. Sir Robert turns from the squire to the Knight, sitting atop his black destrier at the edge of the grounds, and raising his voice even further, until Sir Ramiro flinches beside him and the unknown but beautiful companion of Sir Ramiro stops up her ears, he shouts so loudly that even the thick-necked destriers startle:
“That on this matter, I shall do as I damn well please!”
It is high drama—Sir Robert’s finest moment in the last three sorry days. Unfortunately, all of this shouting has a sorry outcome.
For the rider is not Bayard Brightblade at all, but a slow-witted, red-haired boy from Coastlund, dressed in armor that shines from only the shoulders up, since the breastplate and everything below it is caked with a dark, sandy mud, with dried algae and pigcress, and with other, even more foul-smelling things. A Pathwarden, the boy is. Sir Robert remembers his father, and wonders how a fine old Knight such as Andrew could have sired this sniveling wreckage.
The boy announces his desire to enter the tournament for the hand of the Lady Enid di Caela. The viewing stands erupt with laughter, and Sir Prosper, conscious of the boy’s hurt dignity, sweeps his lance mightily through the air. Out of respect for Prosper, the laughter dies.
All except for one man’s. From across the tournament grounds, Gabriel Androctus’s laughter rises—melodious and deep and almost beautiful. Enid di Caela hears this laughter through the open window of her chambers, wonders whose it is, and walks to the window.
Where she views for the first time any of this tournament, sees Sir Prosper of Zeriak, whom she recognizes from his cloudy, translucent armor, squared off against the man who laughed—a handsome Knight in black armor, whom despite his handsomeness, she dislikes instantly.
She notices that he is lefthanded. Though she has seldom watched a tournament, she knows that lefthanders spread confusion in the lists.
Enid di Caela finds herself fearing for Prosper of Zeriak. Though she would not delight in being Sir Prosper’s much younger, much brighter wife, she knows him for a good man.
On the other hand, she knows nothing of the black-armored Knight except that he killed Orban of Kern and that his very looks, though handsome and refined, make her flesh crawl.
Below the Lady Enid’s vantage point, the two destriers paw the earth impatiently. They are purebred warhorses, and eager to match strength and speed.
Such is also the case with Sir Prosper of Zeriak. He nods graciously, Solamnically, to his opponent. He shuts his visor and proffers his lance.
The Hooded Knight, Gabriel Androctus, stands immobile like a huge onyx statue at the end of the tournament grounds. Finally, as the herald glances to Sir Robert then raises the trumpet to his lips, Sir Gabriel’s lance drops to the ready. The destriers lurch forward, churning the ground behind them, and the final joust for the hand of Enid di Caela begins.