In the Eye of Heaven (36 page)

Coensar's eyes darted to Durand, beads of lead in a face gray as wax.

Then Lamoric's men surrounded them. Guthred pulled Coensar away. Berchard took the bridle of his own horse. "No one's fault It was no one's."

The others gathered Coensar up and carried him off to safety, Berchard nodding up at Durand. "Watch His Lordship, Durand. There's no one else."

The next charge of horsemen began.

He fought in
the hope that Coensar would clear his head and rejoin them. They took no prizes. They won no duels. Though Lamoric hissed and snarled, Durand guarded him closely, riding hard to stick by allied conrois and refusing to let any screaming knight goad them into a fight they could not win. Durand watched and rode, teeth bare and eyes wide, cutting like a shepherd's dog between Lamoric and harm.

With no time for any goal but survival, Durand scarcely noticed that his shielding tactics won his master the advantage. While they ducked and dodged, other conrois tore at one another. Puffed-up thugs hared off at every insult; knights dueled like alley bravos. Soon, there wasn't a single three-man conroi left in the field. Every other group had lost at least one rider, and the desperate air of men hard-pressed was on them all. It was then that Lamoric took charge.

"Curse you, Durand, I'm my father's son, not his daughter, and that's the last I can stand of hiding. Get out of my way, and we'll take a few prisoners before this cursed melee's done." With a stiff gesture of his sword, he broke away. Durand charged after. The young lord, with Durand's help, forced a knight in yellow to surrender, then turned toward a pair of horsemen. Durand recognized one as the knight who had nearly unhorsed him at the beginning of the afternoon's combat. His shield was checked in gold and green: Durand's own colors.

Just as Durand set his spurs, the herald's horns moaned out. Durand's borrowed warhorse fell out of its gallop.

Sir Gold and Green took his helm in his hands and lifted. Durand was startled to see the rus
ty hair of his acquaintance Cer
lac. He waved an exhausted salute, and Cerlac grinned back.

But the Lady was standing, her face the model of playful indignation, and, climbing down into the lists before her, came the graybeard herald.

"Her Ladyship has no interest in watching men tear one another to pieces in mismatched battles. Let each man-at-arms who remains within the lists prepare himself for the deciding contest of the day's fighting. You will fight singly. One man against another until there is victory."

Now
the field
was narrow and lined deep with spectators. At one end, Durand stood in a shadowed knot of nine horsemen, wishing he could see past the iron mask of Lamoric's helm. Near a hundred knights made up the first rank of onlookers, cheek by jowl, silent, and bloodied.

Beyond them, the peasants of Bower Mead had closed upon the field, standing like a solemn host of specters. Grimy faces, homespun garb: hairy wool and nettle. They numbered more than a hundred.

The sound of the place had changed. Someone sniffed a running nose. Tack on horses at the far end might have been pennies rattling in Durand's hand.

It was here they would have to fight.

The graybeard herald, his face like a carved icon, stepped into the narrow lists. Down the long ground, Durand could see another knot of horsemen.

The man spoke now, his voice pitch low: "Eighteen of you remained within the lists when the horns were winded. Nine," he said, "and nine. Now, you must now decide who will enter next."

The herald looked back to his Lady, who nodded once very slowly and took her seat.

"The first combatants must enter the lists." "Right," said a voice.

A knight Durand had never met swung up into his saddle and erupted from their ranks, lance in hand. At the far end of the lists, another stallion pranced into the long alley. The men loved a joust. Everything a man did was seen.

The first knights lit out. The grunt and slam as they collided sent a flinch through the horses all around Durand. Both men hit the ground before the Lady's seat in the stands. You could hear the two combatants hauling breath through suffocating helms as they fought. Finally, the far champion fell, bludgeoned over the shoulder till he couldn't lift his sword.

Durand watched the women. They were seated close enough to flinch at every blow.

When the first pair of knights had been dragged from the lists, a man in black shrugged off the others at Durand's side to barge into the narrow field, his warhorse high-stepping. And again the ground shook under the Lady's eyes as he rumbled out to meet another champion from the far camp. You could see the shock twitch through the fabric across the black knight's back as his lance struck home.

At Acconel, Durand once saw a standing man struck by a charging horse's shoulder. He landed five paces away. And here there were two horses, with all their speed and all their weight balanced on the point of a lance. Idly, he thought that it was amazing no one had died.

Then he remembered this tournament's rule:
There was always one.
And it must happen soon. There were only seven pairs left to fight.

Before Durand could finish the count, another knight tore out in a swirl of green. Again, the ground rolled in the narrow place like battle-drums in a bedchamber. Neither man died. The handmaidens sighed for the vanquished man, but were giddy as the green knight bowed and handed up the captured crest of the loser's helm: a gilded lion. A breathtaking woman accepted the mangled leather head with care.

By now, the others were all on horseback. Durand felt Lamoric's hand on his shoulder. It was ridiculous to fight in such close quarters. There were too many people too close to breathe.

Another pair rode out, catching Durand by surprise. He had hardly noticed the last pair fall. They had all been quick. Another knight rode out. There was a crash that left both riders struggling like foals in the grass.

There were only a few of them left now, all lined up.

"I'll go now," said Lamoric.

"Lordship," Durand acknowledged, taking a sharp look down the alley of faces to the horsemen at the far end. And saw Moryn.

The Lord of Mornaway tugged at gauntlets and seated his helm. Durand actually glanced to see that the man wasn't beside him as well. He had changed sides after the fighting began. To play such a trick, Mornaway must have felt very ill-used by Lamoric's evasions.

Now, one bad pass could throw away Lamoric's chance at the Herald and the prince at Tern Gyre. And Lamoric was about to ride out.

"No"
said Durand, and caught Lamoric's arm, half twisting the man from his saddle. There was no time to explain. He slapped the rump of the next man's horse, sending the animal lurching into the lists. The rider, a knight in blue slashes, twisted around, but he was in too far to retreat without looking a coward.

Durand could see Lord Moryn falter, his horse falling off stride. Then Moryn spurred the animal on, and the two knights met with a crash that sent the blue knight skidding from the lists, hauled by one stirrup.

As Moryn left the lists—with a long look for Lamoric— Durand noted that no one had died.

"Now. Keep off!" growled Lamoric, nudging his mount into the lists and charged a knight in marine hues. On their first pass, each man's lance detonated. An exchange of fierce cuts ended with the enemy disarmed by a hacking strike across his knuckles. The green knight fell on his knees, vanquished. Lamoric, after gravely accepting the man's surrender, bowed to the Lady and remounted to ride from the lists.

And still no one had died.

"That's you," Lamoric said, jouncing past. And Durand was next—he was also the last.' And the tournament had not yet claimed its victim.

He looked down the corridor of faces: a hundred peers and a hundred peasants. He guided Berchard's sooty brown between the palings and into the lists. Heremund was among the faces. The skald's hat was a knot in hi
s fists. No one said a word.

Durand closed his eyes. Someone might already have died, passing in some surgeon-barber's tent. He looked down the long alley.

At the far end, he saw gold and green. Cerlac's green and gold. With dull astonishment, Durand raised his lance and watched Cerlac answer, his expression neatly shut behind the slit mask of his helm.

Gold and green.

The Silent King knows all dooms, and a wise man does not grumble.

The women of the castle leaned in. The joust would end on the blood-soaked ground right before them. Cerlac was having some trouble settling his horse. The women talked and pointed. There were a multitude of eyes on him. Durand shut the women from his mind and fixed his attention on Cerlac.

Man and horse both were one shifting maze of yellow linen and green diamonds. Durand watched as the shield bobbed— moving squares against the field of diamonds.

He cocked his own Col stags.

Someone was leaning in—astonished, foal-dark eyes, and a fringe of red hair. The Stream Maid. But Cerlac nodded.

Durand snatched a lungful and spurred his horse.

They were off. Walls of staring faces rippled past. As the green edge of the stand flickered by, Durand swung his lance into line. The big brown charged like a bull. At the last, Durand clamped the lance tight against his side.

Twin shocks: shield and lance. Splinters flew. His thumb-knuckle punched his own ribs like the beak of an anvil, but he held his seat.

He ended his rumbling charge in the southern camp, fighting for air. He gulped and swallowed. Men were close around the horse's flanks. There was no time. He needed a weapon. Fumbling his sword free of its scabbard with a shaking hand, he spun. He spotted Cerlac, still in his saddle, also hauling his blade free.

He charged. Cerlac pitched toward him, his sword catching flame in the red dusk. At the last, Durand swung, but there was hardly room. At the point of impact, Durand's knee met Cerlac's. Cerlac's helm struck the cross-guard of Durand's sword, the knight's head snapping round. Durand's blade flew over the crowd. Cerlac hurtled to the sod in a hail of chain skirts and scabbards.

Durand halted the brown as a desperate Cerlac bobbed up, weaving across the turf on all fours, groping for his own sword.

Durand dropped from his saddle—empty-handed, his knee barely taking his weight. The wall of peasants had closed over his sword. One look at their grim faces told him that he wouldn't get it back. Cerlac was already on his feet,! blade in hand. The man reared back. Durand stood before him, defenseless. But Cerlac checked his swing. He gestured, thrusting his chin toward a snapped lance. A good four feet remained—and a point.

The crowd was close enough to whisper as Durand picked up the lance and faced Cerlac. Both men wavered then. Breath hissed. Before Durand's throbbing eyes, Cerlac was a masked shape of gold and green and eye-slit shadow. Durand tried to fill the bottoms of his lungs and stamp some feeling back into his knee. Finally, they stepped into a circling dance.

Durand forced himself to think. The lance would make a passable bludgeon, and the point was sound. He would have to pick his chance. As he circled, his shadow swung over Cerlac, and Cerlac came into the light. In that instant, he saw clear ribbons of freckled skin and red lashes through Cerlac's visor. Durand struck, jabbing high. The point squawked from the top of Cerlac's shield and caromed from the diamond helm.

Cerlac launched an iron hail, and, grimacing under his shield, Durand lashed back. Razor edges flickered between them quick as willow switches. Blows sparked and scrabbled over mail and shields. Durand caught a cross cut below his ear that dazed him, but managed to bash another stroke against the iron cask of Cerlac's helm. Then the first flurry was over, and there was no air left in Creation.

Durand staggered free, stooped as a baited bear. In the lull, Cerlac's sword twitched, drawing Durand's eye. They circled. He could do little more than react, following his partner wobbling through the blazing sunset, blind and blinking into the brilliance or stumbling into shadow.

There was no time to get his wind back. He had thrown too much into those first moments. Cerlac darted. A strike against his shield shuddered through the bones of his shoulder. Cerlac's blade flickered like an adder's tongue. The point jabbed at Durand's hauberk, faster than he could stop it He wondered if, even now, some injured man lay in his tent breathing his last Cerlac's point shot for Durand's face, but a flinch sent the blade raking at the mail over his ear. He would not survive much longer.

Abrupdy, Cerlac swung. The shearing overhand bit deep through the lime planks of Durand's shield and stuck. Durand yanked, but couldn't pull free. For an instant, an animal panic gripped him. Cerlac wrenched the shield, twisting the blade— it was a chance. With jaws locked, Durand hauled on his shield and tripped Cerlac in a fairground wrestler's throw that sent the man sprawling even as the Col Stags split—the shield useless.