Cerlac hit the ground.
Durand blinked at the wreckage in his fist, knowing he could block nothing now. His shoulders smoldered like hot lead. But Cerlac was down—helpless for a moment. They were gasping in the stands. Women's voices. Doom turned on this heartbeat: One of them must die.
But Durand closed his eyes. A man cannot choose the time of his ending, only the manner of it. He let the ruined shield fall from his arm and Cerlac get to his feet.
Tense and still, Durand raised the broken lance in salute. Cerlac was looking at him. What they began, they must finish. Cerlac nodded and raised his sword.
The ending began with Cerlac. He reeled forward, casting his blade into a looping sledgehammer's swing. Durand beat the blade aside with his bit of lance, warding his face with his free hand.
Cerlac swung again, forcing Durand to weave and stumble. There was no time to counter. He could scarcely breathe. With every step, the swinging weight of his hauberk pitched and carried him.
Finally, Cerlac aimed another sledgehammer swing for Durand's head. Durand could only bull himself inside, trapping Cerlac's blade high. The other man skipped back. Durand lurched clear and hurled a scything blow at his opponent's shins.
With what fire remained in his blood, Durand barged close yet again. Lights burst in his eyes. He could hear Cerlac's breath rasping against the face of his helm. Durand crashed the broken end of his lance against the painted diamonds there and held on, hammering again and again, almost losing his grip in desperation.
They staggered apart. Durand had nothing left. Cerlac was clawing at his helm. Round pennies of flaked paint glinted where Durand's blows had fallen. For a moment, Durand thought something had happened. Some blow had got through. Then the man caught himself, flinging the helmet aside.
In the final assault, Durand caught blows on his forearm, his shoulder. Staggering, Durand covered his face. Something raked down his head. His ear. There was blood.
And there was a moment. Durand's eyes focused. Cerlac's bare face was a mask of blood. He held his sword high, the blade flashing its image in Durand's eyes. Then he brought it hurtling down.
Durand remembered leaping inside the arc, trying to bring his lance up. There was a scream.
Men pulled. Durand
heard a high whistle ringing in the air over the field. There was iron and earth on his tongue. A blade of dry grass had found its way into his mouth. There were voices.
Suddenly, a horizon of trees was rolling like a dropped platter around him—sky the cool pewter of encroaching evening. Hands pressed at him. Shouts. Suddenly, against his will, his stomach was turning itself out. The horizon ducked and spun—its trees like black teeth.
Then he was above everyone, hanging between two men's shoulders. He clawed at the roughness of the iron mail under his fingers. Something swung from the wetness on his cheek and jaw.
He looked up and saw the face of a woman. Then the woman's eyes, clear and full of pain. They trembled, pale amethyst. He wanted to touch the down at her hairline where the cool air played. She reached up, and her pale hands wrapped something round his neck. His bearers bent. Durand's feet slid. They were kneeling. His gaze passed her chest, the jeweled strand of her girdle, and the silk of her tiny slippers.
Her breath was in his nostrils, and he felt a pressure of lips on his forehead.
When next he
woke, he was lolling in a bath.
Scented oil burned from the many necks of the brass lamps suspended about the chamber. Rose petals drifted on the water, spinning under the pressure of his breath, rocked by the beating of his heart. Durand stared. Somehow, the heat and buoyancy conspired to render him insensible of his limbs. He seemed to exist only in two aching points: a jagged knot in his skull, and a much duller throb in the arch of his breastbone.
He stared across the sea of petals to a tapestry across the room. In the weave was a girl in a white chemise. She cradled a rabbit in a bed of hay. It was not just hay, though. Each stalk ended in a drooping head of barley. The rabbit seemed to look up from the world of knots and stitches, favoring him with a knowing stare.
Still struggling to
pull his thoughts together, he soon found himself in a white hall within the castle of Bower Mead. Score upon score of mailed knights stood along great feasting tables. Silver lamps of sweet oil filled the air with scented vapors.
Standing, he rocked on his feet, facing the shimmering ranks of warriors. He was at the high table. A few of the leading knights stood with him. They were all rich men. The others were the ladies of the Bower. A few smiled his way. He could think of no response.
Everyone seemed to be waiting for something. Down the table, the Lady of the Bower raised her hands above the room. Her voice chimed in the air.
"Most gracious Mother of All, Empress of Heaven, we humbly offer our thanks. We pray on this night that You may hold us in Your heart wherever we may travel in all the lands under the Moons. We remember Your sacrifice, and we thank You for the gift of life which You have given and will give. Now as then; now as always."
The men stood silent.
"Maiden of Spring. Once born, never dying. Most Holy Sister. Maid of spring and harvest, we offer our thanks on this the night of Your cry in the darkness. We who bear and are born, honor Your taking up of the burden of Creation. In Your memory we undertake to do likewise."
The men intoned:
So be it.
After the rumble of voices ebbed away—when the room stood again in silence—Durand saw the Lady nod once. A knight of every conroi made his way to the space below the high table. Each one bowed in his turn and offered his thanks for the hospitality of the Lady and the thanks of his company for the lives and good fortune of his men. When this ritual had been completed, men entered the room from every side. They were the pale knights from the castle walls. Scores of them. Durand had never seen living men so pale. Each one carried a steaming tureen of pottage.
With a great moan of wooden benches, the guests took their seats. Gray hands set bowls before each man. Durand flinched as a long-fingered and bloodless hand slid a bowl under his chin. Then the gray knights retired to the walls.
Along the high table, the Lady and her handmaidens drank, though no one at the tables below moved. Durand could not imagine eating.
Durand left bread and pottage alone. Goose, duck, veal, chicken, and pork followed, baked in pies or minced in herbs and milk. Durand's head ached. There was a hammering ache in his ribs. Dish after dish passed him by, his tongue a bloated thing in his throat.
Durand stared into the rippling silver of the goblet set before him. Finally, he reached out, taking the cup in his hand, raising spiced wine to his lips.
A hand caught his wrist.
The lean face of Moryn of Mornaway was looking back at him. The man would not let go.
"Do not drink."
"Host of Heaven," said Durand. Looking out, he now saw that on all the long tables in the hall, not one platter of the hundreds carried from the kitchens had been touched. Gingerly, he set his goblet down.
Quite suddenly, the Lady of the Bower spoke: "Our feast is at an end. As is this longest of vigils for our warriors. Know, all of you, that on this night, the world is under the eye of its Mother. No creature under this moon may do another harm. A lamb could lie in a leopard's fangs. A hare in the jaws of a wolf. You need post no sentries, and keep no watches. All the lands of the world may sleep at ease on this night. Go now in peace."
The men rumbled thanks to the Queen of Heaven, and each conroi presented itself to the Lady of the Bower in turn, offering praise and thanks before departing. Lamoric bowed low, red helm in place. Moryn stood, straight-backed, and bowed. Cassonel—hale now, though with a limp—bowed as well. When they had finished, Durand stood and climbed down from the dais, feeling like a ghost.
"Durand?" It was Heremund. "Here. I've got him."
Berchard shouldered his way against the current of departing guests. "Here. He held out the hilt of a sword to Durand. "After the fight, those peasants just turned and melted off, silent as deer. This bit of steel was left lying there. Coen figured you might need it again if you came around."
Heremund clapped Durand gently on the shoulder.
Berchard shook his head. "If you'd been a step further back—half a step!—that man would have split your head like a cabbage. It was mostly the hilt he hit you with. I'll admit: I had my good eye shut when that blade started down."
Durand touched his forehead.
"I've never seen a sleeping man stab anyone," Berchard continued. "It's easier the other way round. Ouen was saying that lance caught right there."
The man reached out, pressing two fingers against Durand's breastbone. A bruise, a broken rib, throbbed under the man's stabbing fingers.
Then his expression faltered, and he withdrew his hand.
"Durand?" said Heremund.
Berchard nodded, suddenly more serious. "A good knock on the head. Strange things. You lose a few moments. Never remember exactly. A moment before, and then the floor."
The skald had taken hold of his sleeve.
"Let's get him out of this place," Heremund said.
Durand's chest ached. The pressure of something hard lingered in the arch of his ribs.
They walked through the gloomy castle courtyard and into the chill air beyond the gates.
"You've won, Durand," Berchard said. "No one could fault you."
"Sir Berchard," Heremund said, "I'm sure he'll be fine when his head clears. I'll make certain that he's all right."
Berchard nodded, ready to leave them. "Things like these, they happen at tourneys, Durand. Your friend knew it."
With that, the man departed for the tents.
Durand felt the skald's eyes on him. 'Tell me," Durand said.
"You won, Durand."
He probed at shadow-clotted memory, dreading what he might find. "I won." "What do you remember?"
"I remember a blow. The blade coming down." It winked in his mind's eye. He could see nothing after that.
"Aye. That one shut your eyes. But you got that lancehead up between you, jutting like a stake. The lunge. Cerlac drove himself onto the point. I'm surprised the broken end didn't go right through you."
"Hells," said Durand.
Heremund nodded, continuing quietly. "The pair of you just stood there a heartbeat. Then the blade slid."
Durand shook his head. Under his fingers, he could feel the angular bruise over his breastbone—the phantom of that lance balancing its weight against his ribs. It throbbed like a second heart
"He died before last twilight," answered the skald. "Host of Heaven," Durand murmured. "Are you all right?"
Raising his hand, Durand answered, "I must think." And he left Heremund, setting off down the track the maidens had taken toward the fields. It had all been so strange. Lamoric's men might have ridden straight to Moryn's little tournament if Hesperand had not pulled them in. Lamoric's father might have waited to hold Alwen's funeral. Gravenholm's heir might not have stumbled home from the sea. He thought of his long vigil in the keep at Ferangore. There were many things that need not have happened.
He had never meant to fight. He should have been passing lances and running broken equipment to Guthred. Now, he had met a man and killed him all in the space of one long day.
The churned earth of the lists stretched before him, and he stepped into the rectangle of matted grass where the stands had been. Now, the battlefield might as easily have been turned by plowmen as by armored knights.
Alone, he sank to one knee a few steps from the ruined acre. He was as tired as he had ever been. The ribs ached. And he had fetched up right near where Cerlac must have gone down. He thought of his father's savage warnings: A knight-errant was a man in danger of losing his soul.
He blinked hard and breathed. Berchard was right; he had done nothing wrong. Every man knew that when he stepped into the lists, death was waiting.
Against the trees, he caught sight of an angular shape: the well's windlass. A shock of cold water was what he needed. He staggered off toward the well. The air prickled with ghosts, but soon he had his hands on the well's cool stones. There was no bucket, only the rope running down. He looked over the rim and found the moon hanging below the earth, shining in deep water. His own reflection was like a black keyhole.
He turned the windlass, sending shivers over the image— swinging the whole sloshing moon to his hands. Icy blackness crashed over his eyes and down his chest.