“Thank you, Count,” Relos Var said. He bowed then, a real bow. The warmth in his eyes when he smiled surprised me. “What atrocious timing. I hope we’ll meet again in circumstances where I can give you my full attention.”
He seemed sincere, his expression kind, and yet his words struck me as a threat. I felt a chill, married to the certainty I wouldn’t enjoy Relos Var’s “full attention.”3
“And you,” I said.
He left as the crowd drummed their feet in anticipation. I claimed his now-empty chair and tried to act interested in the outcome for all the normal reasons, but I couldn’t stop staring at the pillars. Var had almost distracted me, but my true purpose for being there stood right in front of my eyes.
“Sir Xia Nilos,” Tamin said, drawing my attention back to the match. He pointed to a knight in a beautiful sky eagle headdress and a gray-and-white beaded coat, riding a lovely dappled gray mare with matching ribbons in her mane. “She represents the Seven Journeys Trade Consortium. Facing against her is my man, Sir Dedreugh.” He didn’t need to point out the other knight. Dedreugh dressed in yellow and brown, gold and bronze, his parade dress resplendent with streamers catching the air and sailing behind him. He made his turns along the contest grounds and shouted threats to his opponent.
The crowd’s enthusiasm felt forced and unnatural. If Dedreugh’s boasts to me hadn’t been a fool’s bluster, then he was this little wood’s tiger king. I expected him to have loyal fans and admirers, waving his flags, dressed in his colors. Instead, the locals clearly cheered for him because they had to cheer for him.
Visitors cheered for Dedreugh for the same reason they cheered for any knight: they’d placed a wager on the outcome.
“Your captain mentioned last night he usually wins the final tournament prize of arrested saelen. Your judges don’t feel that’s a conflict of interest?”
Tamin’s expression soured, but then he laughed. He waved at the old, doddering warden. “There sits my only judge.”
My eyes widened.
“I know,” Tamin said. His mouth twisted. “But what can I do? My other wardens refuse to attend, claiming hardship from the winter. It would be a scandal if I tried to lead the judges myself, and he’s the only one who’s bothering to show up these days. The others have deserted me.”
“There are no high mares—?”
“Warden Dokmar’s daughter Ganar is down there in a cage,” he snapped. “She’s a murdering whore, who threw her lot in with witches and assassins. Shall I have her be a referee?”
I shuddered. I wondered if Warden Dokmar knew his daughter waited to be executed for treason and witchcraft.
Tamin reached out and grabbed my hand. Had I been any other person, I would say he grabbed far too hard.
“You,” Tamin said, “are the only good thing that’s happened in months, Janel. Your arrival feels like the coming of spring.”
“Tamin,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm, “it is spring.”
He stared at me for a second as if I’d just said something surprising and unbelievable, told him the sky was blue instead of teal, announced magic legal throughout the land.
If I’m being honest with myself, he didn’t look sane.
A loud, jarring clash interrupted whatever response he’d have given. We both turned back to the grounds in time to see the two knights complete their initial pass. Xia Nilos, being lower ranked in idorrá, had chosen the form of the bout, in this case, the Contest of Khored. In turn, Dedreugh picked the technique—Sword Crashing style—which favored brute strength over subtlety. I thought it a poor strategy for Xia Nilos, one that resulted in her current predicament: knocked from her horse, struggling to find the weapon she’d dropped. To the side, Nilos’s squire grabbed a second blade and ran toward his knight.
Sir Xia Nilos raised her shield in time to intercept a stunning blow from Dedreugh, which pushed her backward. Nilos fumbled her sword, put both hands up to support her shield.
I’m sure under other circumstances, against other opponents, Sir Xia’s skills would have seen her through. But not here. Not against an enemy like Dedreugh.
I looked over at the warden. “She’s defeated. Call it.”
The old man mumbled to himself.
“Let Sir Xia decide when she’s conquered,” the servant said on Warden Lorat’s behalf.
The blows Dedreugh rained down on Xia seemed less appropriate to a contest of skill than to hammering a blade on the forge. Xia’s shield dented.
“Do it,” Tamin whispered. His eyes brightened.
The woman picked the dhole puppy up from the warden’s lap and turned away.
“Do you yield?” I cried out. I didn’t think the knights could hear me over the boos of screaming spectators.
The squire ran in with the second sword.
I saw what followed as if time herself had slowed to watch. The reverberating blows from Dedreugh, supernaturally strong and so forceful I thought he could punch through the shield to overwhelm his opponent. Sir Xia’s unsteady steps as she tried to find her balance. The shout from the young squire as he put the blade into a position for Nilos to grab it. Time paused.
Dedreugh swung his sword back and took the squire straight through the stomach.
I stood. Everyone stood.
Shock and the naïve belief that the match had finished—it had to be over, didn’t it?—lowered Sir Xia’s guard. Her gaze fixed on her dying squire.
She stopped paying attention to her enemy.
Dedreugh pulled his weapon from the dead boy’s body, spun back to Sir Xia, and used the bloody blade to flip the woman’s shield out of line.
Sir Xia screamed as Dedreugh’s sword pierced her armor’s neck seam, before punching down into her armpit. Dedreugh yanked the blade up, blood spraying as he opened a major artery and severed her arm.
“Tamin!” I shouted.
Tamin’s expression turned ecstatic, his focus lost in victory and bloodlust. His nostrils flared as he heard my admonishing voice, and he turned to me. “You’re my friend, not my count. Your tone is unwarranted.”
“They’ll die,” I said. “Both Sir Xia and her squire will die.”
Tamin stared at me as if I spoke a foreign language. Why should those deaths bother or concern him? He sat in his chair. “Aren’t the tournaments designed to ready us for war? In war, don’t people die?” He raised a hand in a benediction to Sir Dedreugh while others came out to collect the bodies.
“Tamin—”
He smiled and waved, but his expression turned cold when he glanced at me. “Don’t question my actions, Janel. I have a banner on the brink of catastrophe. I have to take drastic action.”4
“Drastic action?” I fought to keep my voice level. “Tamin, Dedreugh is your man. You’re responsible for paying the death price for those he slays. If your banner is in such straits, how can you afford that?”
“I won’t accept advice from a stallion who fled her own canton, rather than face Censure.” Tamin leaned forward, his expression nasty. “You think I don’t know the truth behind your visit? Your former betrothed, Sir Oreth, bought out your people even before your grandfather breathed his last. All the while you sat there, oblivious to being made a laughingstock. That’s why you didn’t come by Gatestone—you had neither Gatestone nor Gatekeeper to use.”