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 hundred 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 Lam
oric'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 t
hese men that you must scatter th
em 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.