Lady Knight (21 page)

The grounds were packed to overflowing. Hawkers and pickpockets must be doing a
thriving business. Some of the thousands of spectators looked at Riannon, but
most gazes slid away without snagging. She was just another knight amongst many.

At Guy’s arming tent, she dismounted. Not surprisingly, her brother was absent.
She dispatched a page to find him. Alan found her some water to drink. Her
throat was tight and dry. She sent Alan to inform the marshal that Naer
Aveline’s champion would present herself at noon.

Another roaring cheer rolled from the crowd. Riannon closed her eyes and pressed
her fingertips to the base of her throat. Beneath the linen surcoat she felt the
supple but hard mail shirt. Eleanor’s lock of hair lay beneath many layers.
Riannon knew that it touched her skin, just like this time yesterday when they
lay together in Eleanor’s bed. She loved and was loved in return – more
passionately than any troubadour’s song, more simply profound than any blessing.

“You are what I regret,” Riannon whispered.

A flurry of commotion preceded Guy bursting into the tent.

“Nonnie! This is a surprise. I’d not thought you eager for the games?”

Riannon signalled for Alan to leave. Guy frowned at her shield. Riannon put a
hand on his shoulder.

“Brother, you are the greatest fool the gods created,” she said.

Guy grinned. “You’re not the first to tell me so. What brings you to this
conclusion?”

“Eleanor.”

Guy nodded. “She, I believe, was one of the first to tell me that my pate is
addled.”

Riannon tightened her grip on his shoulder. “Listen to me. The queen has told
Nell she must marry.”

Guy lost his smile. “Who?”

“Old Lord Howe.”

“You jest! Him?”

“I am in earnest,” she said. “But it isn’t settled yet. You must speak with the
queen. You boast that you can get any female to do as you wish. Very well. Put
your charm to the test. Convince her to let you wed Eleanor.”

A blast of horns cut through the background hubbub. The tent flap twitched.
Alan said, “Lady.”

“Speak with her,” Riannon said to Guy. “Surely you have more claim on her
largesse than this old man.”

“You seem right eager to get me wed,” Guy said. “Why does this concern you so?”

Because if I cannot have her, the next best thing is for you to. Because if she
loves me, she might grow to love you and be happy. Because I cannot bear the
thought of her with that old man.

The horns sounded again.

“I must go,” she said. “Don’t waste your last chance.” Guy followed her outside.
He frowned as he watched her don her helm and stand for Alan to lace her mail
mittens in place. “Nonnie?” Guy said. “You are to fight? But… Atuan’s legs!
Nonnie, you’re not –?”

Riannon jabbed a mailed hand at his chest. “Eleanor. Forget her not.”

She swung up into the saddle. The horns sounded their third call. “Nonnie!” Guy
stepped close to her stirrup. “You are the Vahldomne?”

“I am late,” she said.

“Go with the gods!” he said.

Riannon lifted a hand in salute and urged her horse forwards. Alan and John, on
foot, shouted and shoved a path through the tightly packed crowd for her. The
curious stares riveted on her now. Riannon looked past and above them through
the slit of her helm. She guided her horse to the entrance to the marked off
ground. Numerous squires and young knights stood as she passed them. They raised
arms in salute.

“Vahldomne!”

The shout rippled around behind her as Riannon urged her horse across the
scuffed and beaten turf. The marshal, marked by his man holding a banner behind
him, waited in the field. Riannon heard a strange, muted sound like a thousand
indrawn breaths. She halted her horse near the marshal. The imperial champion
stood a few feet beyond, with a supporter behind him.

The marshal, on foot, frowned up at her. “Sir, you are the Vahldomne?”

Riannon dismounted. By this time Alan had jogged to her and she passed him the
reins.

“I offer myself as Naer Aveline’s champion,” Riannon said. “If she will accept
me.”

The marshal nodded. Beyond him, her imperial opponent stared stony-faced as if
he understood none of their words.

Riannon turned to the stands. The queen sat on her painted chair under a canopy
bearing the royal blazon. Her sister sat to one side. Riannon bowed to the queen
before striding closer to the stand. As ritual required, she drew her sword and
held it pointing up at Aveline. Aveline removed the gold quartered-circle emblem
she wore and tossed it to Riannon.

“Be my champion,” Aveline said. “Know that you fight not for me but for the Lady
of Creation. Prove her cause to be right and just.” Riannon sheathed her sword
and strode back to the marshal. Alan fastened Aveline’s symbol to Riannon’s
sword belt. Riannon fleetingly wondered if this gift also contained some magical
property that Aveline saw fit not to warn Riannon about. She settled her shield
on her arm and turned to face the marshal and her opponent.

“The challenge was to the death.” The marshal looked between the combatants.
“But if one of you yields, we’ll ask the principals if they’ll accept that.”

The man behind the imperial warrior spoke in a fluid language to him. The
warrior shook his head.

The marshal bowed to the queen and stepped back. “May the gods guide you.”

Riannon lifted her sword and concentrated on her opponent. She was two or three
inches taller, but he was of bulkier build. His shoulders were as bullishly
thick as her brother Henry’s, and his middle thickening to a similar paunch.
His unusual armour, of many small metal plates reminiscent of fish scales, was
the same as that of the man at Vahl. His open-faced helm showed his tattoo
clawing its way up his face out of the confines of his mail coif. The pattern on
his shield was a dragon’s claw. He flashed his sword upwards in some form of
salute, though whether to her or his gods, Riannon did not know. He stood with
his sword raised and muttering. She withheld her attack until he finished his
prayer. The hilt of her sword felt familiar in her hand. Her shield hung
comfortably on her arm. She could feel her breath inside the helm. She already
sweated. In this heat, it would not be a long contest.

The crowd noise had fallen to an expectant murmur. Over it, Riannon heard a
strange buzzing like an angry wasp. The warrior’s sword scythed down towards
her. Riannon lifted her shield to catch it and swung her sword at his shoulder.
The blow on her shield cracked the wood with a splintering blow. The weight on
her left arm lifted. He deflected her strike easily with his own shield.

Riannon stepped back and looked down. Half her shield hung on her forearm. The
rest lay on the grass. The buzzing whipped towards her. Riannon jerked backwards
and hastily shrugged off the useless remnant of her shield.

Buzzing. Just like that singing blade at Vahl. Such a weapon could cut without
touching. It carved through armour, she remembered, as easily as through
sheerest silk.
Shite.

Riannon switched to a two-handed grip on her sword and aimed a strike at his
sword side. He interposed his weapon and buffeted her with his shield. The blow
caught her on the upper arm. Riannon staggered back out of reach. He was strong,
but clumsy and a fraction slow. Not the sort you would choose as champion in a
fair fight. But was this fair? That sword…

He snarled and swung his sword at her in a scything arc at chest height.
Riannon lifted her sword to easily parry. The air buzzed. Steel met steel in a
clang. Riannon’s hilt jolted with the shock, then jumped in her hands. Through
the slit in her helm she blinked at what she saw. Her sword ended three finger’s
width above her left hand. The blade was gone. Snapped.
What the –?

Buzzing swooped towards her.

Riannon threw herself backwards. The magical sword sliced the air in front of
her chest. She heard the moan of the crowd. She lifted the stump of her sword.
Not snapped. The blade had been cleanly cut.
Shite.

The warrior stepped towards her, sword raised again. Riannon retreated. Now she
understood why a mediocre swordsman could confidently undertake such a duel.
That sword could cut through anything. It needed scant skill to hack an
unprotected opponent to death.

He stalked her. The buzzing blade slashed the air. Riannon danced backwards.
Pain slammed into her left shoulder. The point of his sword hadn’t come within
two feet of her. Yet Riannon knew his magic had cut through the many layers of
her armour and hit flesh. It had happened before – at Vahl. If the strongly
forged steel of her sword could not stop his blade, what could?

He spoke his fluid language again and stepped confidently closer. Riannon flung
her useless stump of sword away, turned around, and saw Alan. She ran to him.

“Lady!” Alan said. “You –”

Riannon grabbed Aveline’s gift sword from his hand and yanked it from the
scabbard as she turned. The warrior advanced. Riannon ignored the stab of pain
from her left arm as she dropped her empty scabbard.

“Right, you whoreson bastard,” she said. “Two can play this game.”

He swung. The sword buzzed. Riannon lifted her sword to parry. The magical
blades met with an ordinary jarring clang of metal and metal. Both blades held.
The buzzing turned into a sizzling like fat dripping into a fire. His eyes
widened in surprise.

Riannon stepped aside. Her shoulder must be bleeding. It hurt. The real pain
would come soon. Riannon aimed a blow to his shield. He lifted it. Her sword cut
it in half and bit into his forearm. He bellowed and swung wildly. Riannon
flicked her blade up to deflect his blow. Her helm exploded with noise.
Sunlight burst in from above her left eye. His magical sword had cut part of the
edge of her helm off. Riannon staggered to the side. He made no attempt to
follow-up. His shoulders sagged and he held his left arm against his body.
Blood dripped from his forearm down the dangling half of his shield.

Riannon aimed a double-handed blow at his right side. He turned awkwardly to
interpose his sword. The force of her blow carried his own weapon against his
body. That contact did not seem to hurt him. But he had not tried to use his
left arm.

Riannon aimed slash after slash at his left side. He stumbled backwards under
the onslaught, clumsily but successfully fending her off, though he lost both
ground and blood.

Riannon swung and swung. His buzzing blade denied her contact. Steel met steel.
Magic warred with magic up and down their blades. Blood dripped from his arm.
She saw it in his eyes when he knew he was going to lose.

“Do you yield?” she shouted.

He swung wildly. Riannon caught his blade against hers. “Do you yield?” she
shouted.

He swung. Riannon knocked the clumsy blow aside, and aimed low as she pivoted.
The end of her sword caught him a hand’s width above his knee. As it had with
the tree, the blade sliced through his mail legging, muscles, and bone.

He crumpled with an ear-splitting howl.

Riannon’s panting breath sounded too loud inside her helm. His severed left leg
lay inches from his body. Blood pumped around the amputated stump. He lay on his
back glaring up at her with a look of utter disbelief.

Riannon stepped closer and put the tip of her sword against his chest. “Do you
yield?”

He snarled. His sword arm lifted. Riannon thrust her point down into his chest.
The tip of her sword pierced the metal plates and sank into his body as if it
were warm butter.

His arm flopped back on the grass. The buzzing died as the life faded from his
eyes. The infidel had gone to face the true gods, where he would make the
terrifying discovery that he had believed in a false god. The real ones would
make him suffer for his error until he had absolved himself. Riannon staggered
clear of the body. Blood smeared the shining rings covering her left arm and
stained her surcoat. “Lady!”

Riannon turned to see Alan jogging the last few paces towards her.

“You’re hurt,” he said. “Healers. I’ll fetch –”

“Remove my helm,” she said.

Alan tugged her laces loose. The air on her face felt like it came straight from
the gardens of paradise.

“Atuan’s beard,” Alan said. “A piece has been cut from your helm! How –”

Riannon stepped past him. The marshal strode towards her. He trailed her as she
walked to the stands.

“Vahldomne?” he said. “You need to see a healer. My own tent is at your service.
I’ll send for –”

“I thank you, but the naer will send her priestess-healers to me.” Riannon
halted at the foot of the stands and pushed her mail coif and the linen one
beneath it back from her sweaty hair. The marshal stopped beside her and his
face dropped as he recognised her. “I asked him to yield,” she said. “He
refused. Though, now that I think on it, mayhap he did not understand me.”

Riannon turned to look up at Aveline. She lifted her bloody sword in a salute.
Aveline smiled triumphantly. A roaring cheer broke out again. The battering ram
of sound beat against Riannon.

“Nonnie!”

Guy rose from near the queen’s chair, squeezed past the noble spectators on the
benches in front of him, and vaulted the railing. He stopped himself from
clapping a hand on her injured shoulder. “I’ll need to use your tent,” she said.

“You need to do a lot of talking,” he said.

“Not while I bleed.”

Her legs began to shake as the reaction to her fight set in. Her shoulder
burned. Alan hovered behind her with her helm.

“Lady,” he said, “should I –”

“Run,” Riannon said.

“Lady?”

“Run,” she said. “Take my horse. As fast as you can. To Lady Eleanor. Tell her I
sent you. Tell her I shall return to her soon. Answer anything she asks, but
don’t tell her that I have a wound. Go!” Guy looked strangely at her. He shouted
for his squires and fell in step beside her for the walk to his arming tent.