Chapter 05
24 min read
Elias woke to the smell of bread and a pain above his right eye. For a moment he could not account for either. The rafters were too close, the light came from the wrong side, and somebody below was striking a wooden spoon against the rim of a pot. Then Will shifted on the other pallet, dragging half his blanket across the floor, and Elias remembered the loft, the dragon and the girl who had apparently been running through the fair with her eyes shut.
He touched his brow. There was a lump beneath the skin, tender enough to bring back the collision with unpleasant accuracy. In the dimness of the passage she had seemed more concerned about her sack than about what she had done to his head. He remembered her telling him to mind the next corner and found, with fresh irritation, that he still had no satisfactory answer.
Will opened his eyes while Elias was looking for his stockings. He watched him feel the swelling a second time, then rolled onto his back.
“There’s a mark, if that’s what you’re trying to find out. I could see it when we got in. You ought to leave it alone before Mara asks you what happened, because I don’t think we can explain the girl without getting round to why we were outside.”
Elias put his stockings on and said he had no intention of explaining any of it. Returning through the yard had taken them longer than leaving. Will had needed a boost onto the wood store, and Elias had climbed after him with one boot in his hand because its heel kept slipping against the wall. They had lain awake afterwards listening for Mara’s aunt, unable to tell whether the footsteps below meant they had been discovered or merely that she also found it difficult to sleep through someone climbing over her outbuildings.
At breakfast she gave no sign of knowing. She put them to carrying split wood from the yard into the bakehouse, where the heat made their faces damp before they had finished the second load. Mara stood at the table cutting a burned edge from a loaf. When Elias set down his armful she examined his forehead, but all she asked was whether he had slept badly.
He told her the roof was lower than he expected. It was sufficiently true that Will managed to remain occupied with the wood.
They ate at the end of the table while the first customers came to the door. Outside, a boy hurried along the lane carrying three painted shields, their cords twisted together over his shoulder. One knocked against his knee every few steps. Will followed him to the doorway with a piece of bread still in his hand.
“They’ll be taking those up to the lists. There were men putting seats together beyond the meadow yesterday. I asked one of them when it started, and he said they’d be riding before noon.” He came back to the table. “We could see the first few and still get home before dark. We haven’t got to leave straight after breakfast.”
Elias had been making much the same calculation since waking. Thomas expected him home that evening, and the road would not become shorter because there were horses worth watching at the other end of it. But they had come all this way. By tomorrow the knights would be scattered across roads he had never travelled, and he would be back beneath the henhouse roof with a hammer.
Mara heard enough to warn them that the tournament enclosure cost more than the gate. Her aunt added that their bundles must be fetched before the afternoon baking, because she would need the space beneath the ladder. They agreed to both conditions with a readiness that made Mara pause in her cutting.
“And don’t go looking for Sir Rowan to get you admitted. He’s gone. Perrin came for their bread while you were asleep. They wanted the southern road before the fair traffic reached it.”
Elias had hoped they might see the heron again, though he had not meant to ask the knight for anything. He finished his bread and helped Will carry the last of the wood inside. As they left, Mara’s aunt gave them the sound half of the loaf she had been trimming. Elias wrapped it in Anne’s cloth and tucked it under his arm, pleased by the unexpected provision for the walk home.
The town had filled while they slept. Yesterday there had been room to stop at a stall; this morning a person who stopped found someone else’s basket pressing into his back. Riders moved through the crowd with servants ahead of them asking people to make way. Elias caught pieces of unfamiliar speech, saw fur at a man’s collar despite the warmth, and passed a pair of hunting dogs so slender he could scarcely believe they were the same sort of animal that slept under Thomas’s table.
Beyond the northern meadow the road opened onto a field enclosed with fresh rails. Striped pavilions stood along its far boundary. Above them flew so many banners that Elias could not separate one from the next until the wind caught them: a red boar, three white towers, a fish with a gold crown, a black hand on pale cloth. Some he recognised from the book Father Martin allowed him to read. Others belonged to places whose names he had heard only in stories, and he found himself trying to remember the distances between them. Men had ridden for days to reach this field. Some must have been on the road before he had even asked Thomas whether he could come.
The horses occupied him longest. A grey passed close enough for him to see the little knots in its plaited mane, its neck moving beneath a cloth embroidered with silver leaves. The rider wore no helmet yet. His hair was damp at the temples, and he was arguing with a servant about a glove. Elias moved out of their way and watched until another horse concealed them.
At the entrance a man sat behind a small table, taking money. Beyond him, wooden stands rose in tiers along the field. There were places for common spectators at either end, already crowded, and a covered gallery halfway down one side where servants were arranging cushions. Elias counted his remaining coins inside his purse without taking them out. He could pay for himself, or he could keep enough for the things Anne had trusted him to bring home. There was no arrangement of the coins that did both.
Will waited until they were clear of the table before suggesting they walk round. He had seen how the stands were built. The cloth hanging down their backs reached the grass in some places and missed it by a foot in others.
“We could get underneath at the far end, where they’re still bringing the benches in. There’s a space below the front row. You’d see through the rails if nobody’s stacked anything there.” He nodded towards the entrance. “We can’t stand here all morning watching other people go in.”
Elias needed little persuading. They followed the outside of the enclosure past a wagon piled with hurdles and a cook throwing dirty water into a ditch. Behind the western stand, two men were carrying a bench between them. Will watched them disappear beneath an awning, then lifted the edge of a faded green hanging and went down on his hands and knees. Elias passed the bread through before following.
Inside, the ground was littered with shavings. Sunlight fell between the seating boards in narrow strips, and the men above seemed much heavier when Elias could hear the wood bending beneath them. He crawled after Will through a triangle of supporting beams, caught his shirt on a nail and freed it with more patience than he felt. The space narrowed towards the front. They had to lie almost flat to work their way under the last crosspiece.
Will reached the rail first and moved aside. Between a low board and the hanging that screened the front of the stand, they had a view across the near end of the lists. A waist-high barrier divided the riding lanes. Beyond it stood the opposite gallery, raised above the field beneath a wide canopy. From here Elias could see the cushions and the empty central chairs without anyone’s head in the way.
He settled on one hip and tested the room above him. They could sit with their shoulders bent, or lie on their stomachs with their chins beyond the cloth. Neither was comfortable. Both were considerably better than the road outside.
Will eased a shaving out of his palm. “My uncle would want another brace under this end. Feel it when they move up there. They’ve put too much weight beyond the post.” He pressed against the nearest upright, judged its movement and shifted closer to it. “Stay this side with me. If somebody starts jumping about, I want a bit of timber over my head.”
Elias moved the bread between them and followed his advice. A servant walked past carrying a pitcher, his feet so close that they drew back together. When he had gone, they looked at one another in the dusty half-light and began laughing as quietly as they could. Elias’s forehead hurt. He pressed it against his sleeve until he could breathe without making a noise. The first trumpet sounded while they were still trying to quiet each other.
For a while Elias forgot where he was sitting. The riders came down the lists in pairs, their horses stepping sideways beneath the colours, while a herald announced names that the crowd sometimes greeted with approval and sometimes shouted over. Men above the boys argued about which northern house bore the towers and whether a knight in yellow had ridden at the last midsummer tournament. One claimed to have seen him break six lances without losing his seat. Another said it had been four, and that two had struck the barrier.
Will chose a rider with a green shield because he liked the horse. Elias preferred a broad-shouldered knight whose armour had been worked into narrow ridges that caught the sun when he turned. They spent some time discussing whether the ridges made it stronger. Yesterday Elias would have been certain. After an afternoon cleaning Sir Rowan’s equipment, he found himself wanting to ask someone who knew.
The herald was halfway through the next name when another call of trumpets sounded beyond the entrance. These played together, a longer phrase that made the people above stop talking. The rider waiting in the lane turned his horse. Along the opposite gallery servants hurried towards the steps, and a man who had been settling into one of the large chairs got up so quickly that he left his cloak behind.
The noise began at the gate and spread along the stands. Elias could hear people asking what was happening, then the answer passing from mouth to mouth. Someone above him stood on the bench. Dust sifted down into his hair.
Royal guards entered first, their horses held at a walk. The king followed beneath a standard Elias had seen painted above the town gate, and for several breaths he could make no connection between the man riding across the field and the name spoken in church, on notices, over every measure of grain owed from Thomas’s holding. The king had a close beard threaded with grey. His cloak lay back from one shoulder, and he was listening to a man riding beside him as though they had come along an ordinary road and happened upon the fair.
Then he raised his hand to the crowd. The cheering grew so loud that Elias felt it in the boards against his back.
Will pushed closer to the opening. “Nobody said he was coming. They’d have had every road cleared if they’d known. Look at the bailiff over there; he’s still trying to get his coat on.”
The queen came behind the riders in an open carriage, with two young women seated opposite her. Attendants gathered at its wheels when it stopped beside the gallery. Elias watched the queen take the offered hand and climb the steps. One of the princesses followed, lifting her skirts clear of the boards. The other paused while a servant freed a fold of her dress from the carriage door, thanked him with a movement Elias could see but not hear, and stepped into the sun.
Elias leaned forward. Her hair was hazelnut brown, brighter where the light passed through it, with part drawn back beneath a slender band of gold. He could see her face clearly when she turned towards the nearest stand. There was a warmth in it that the distance did nothing to diminish, a softness about her mouth until she smiled and altered everything. Elias had seen pretty girls at the fair. He had watched them longer than was sensible and hoped once or twice to be noticed in return. He could not remember ever looking at anyone and simply losing track of what he had been about to do.
She climbed to the gallery, keeping one hand on the rail. From the angle beneath the stand he saw her pass through patches of sunlight, her head turning as her sister spoke behind her. Something in that turn troubled him. He tried to hold the resemblance while she took her place, but she was already sitting, her hands arranged in her lap.
Will said something about the guards. Elias missed it. The princess spoke to her sister again, and the corner of her mouth moved with a brief, private amusement that made him think, absurdly, of a girl backing away between market stalls.
He touched the swelling above his eye. There had been brown hair under the hood. He remembered that much distinctly. He remembered a mouth, too, though every attempt to picture it now produced the princess’s instead. He had seen the girl in poor light while his eyes were watering from the collision. Half the town had brown hair. And the girl had been hauling a sack through the fair at an hour when this one must have been somewhere with candles and servants to open her doors.
“You know her?” Will asked. He had noticed where Elias was looking. “You’ve been making that face since she got out. If you’ve met somebody who sits up there, you’ve kept it very quiet.”
Elias said he thought she looked like someone. He could hear how foolish it would sound if he explained whom, and let Will assume he meant a girl from the village. Across the field, the king bent towards an official standing beside his chair. The princess watched the waiting horses. Elias tried to attend to them too, but when the trumpets sounded for the opening pass, his attention was still divided.
The horses were louder from beneath the stand than he had expected. Their hooves struck through the earth into his elbows, and the first breaking lance made him jerk backwards hard enough to hit his head on a board. Above, the crowd roared. Both knights rode on, one carrying half a shaft, the other dragging his shield arm low before he brought it back into position.
Will was already leaning out again. Elias followed, rubbing the back of his head. At the end of the lane a squire ran forward with a fresh lance. The knight accepted it, settled its weight and turned his horse with a pressure Elias could scarcely see.
They watched three passes. On the last, the man with the green shield lost his stirrup and nearly went over his horse’s flank. He recovered before the end of the run and lifted his broken lance to acknowledge the shouting. Will claimed this was better riding than winning would have been. Elias disputed it until a new pair entered, when they both forgot the argument.
Between bouts, boys came out to gather splinters. One carried a piece longer than himself, turning sideways to get it through a gate. The marshals inspected the lances before handing them back to the squires. Elias could make out the blunt heads now, divided at the end to catch a shield. Knowing they were made for the sport allowed him to enjoy the violence more freely. Men might fall, but others were there to lift them. A knight who had landed badly sat on a stool with a cloth held to his nose while his opponent came over to speak to him.
By the fourth pairing Elias’s voice was hoarse from calling encouragement through the gap. Will had forgotten his concern about the stand and was thumping its front board with everyone above him.
The next knight rode a chestnut with a white foot. His shield bore three pale birds on red, the paint worn away along its lower edge. He was younger than most of the men they had watched. When he lifted his visor at the end of the lane, Elias saw a narrow face, a flattened patch of fair hair and a mouth that kept opening as he worked his jaw against the helmet’s strap. His squire could not get one of the shield fastenings to sit correctly. The knight waited while the boy tried again, then leaned down and helped him pull the leather through.
The herald named him Sir Oren of Merrow. Only a small part of the crowd answered, but the knight saluted it as readily as if the whole field had cheered.
His opponent received a different welcome. Men shouted from several parts of the stands, and those seated above Elias began talking over one another as a black horse came into view. Its rider’s armour was edged in gold. A dark red cloak covered the animal’s rump until a servant stepped forward to take it, revealing a wolf worked across the cloth beneath the saddle.
“Lord Rauth,” said someone overhead. “Merrow won’t last two runs against him. Look at the size of the man.”
Another voice answered that size had nothing to do with it, but Elias was looking at Rauth’s shoulders and was not convinced. The lord sat easily beneath all that metal. His squire offered a lance, received no acknowledgement and moved quickly out of the horse’s path.
Will had begun rooting for the chestnut. “He waited for that lad to finish, did you see? Some of them have been riding off with the straps still loose. And his shield’s smaller. He’ll have to put it in exactly the right place.”
Elias watched Sir Oren close his visor. He wanted him to do well too. There was something cheering about the handful of people still calling his name, their voices carrying unevenly across the field after everyone else had stopped.
On the first pass, Oren’s lance struck squarely. Wood burst against the lord’s shield, and Rauth tipped so far back that Elias expected him to fall. He held his seat, but his horse veered towards the outer rail and needed several strides to settle. Oren came through with his broken lance raised. The little group at the far end rose to its feet.
Will shouted with them. Elias laughed and struck his friend’s shoulder, delighted by the sudden possibility that everyone above them was wrong. At the turning, Rauth sat motionless while his squire approached. The boy offered a fresh lance. Rauth knocked it aside, said something through his visor and pointed towards the rack. The boy hurried back for another.
It took longer to arrange the second pass. Oren’s chestnut worried at the bit; a groom led it round until it steadied. The knight turned his head towards the royal gallery and then down the lane. Elias drew his knees beneath him, wanting to be closer to the opening when the horses came.
The flag fell. Oren started well, lowering his lance as the chestnut gathered speed. For a moment Elias saw only the movement of its white foot and the shield settling before the rider’s shoulder. Rauth came towards them on the other side of the barrier. Both men struck almost together, but Oren’s point glanced away while the lord’s drove high into his shield.
Oren came out of the saddle sideways. His foot caught briefly, twisting him, before he fell clear and struck the ground near the outer rail. Elias heard the armour hit. The knight rolled onto his side less than three paces from their hiding place, his shield arm trapped beneath him.
The chestnut ran on without him. Above the boys, people stood to see. Elias could hear Will drawing breath beside his ear, could feel his own knees pressed into the shavings. Oren lay still for a moment, then bent one leg and began trying to turn. The movement reassured Elias so much that he almost cheered.
A marshal came forward with his staff raised. Rauth had checked his horse beyond the end of the dividing barrier. He dismounted before his squire reached him and threw the reins towards the boy. Elias thought he was coming to help. The previous knight had done that; he remembered the cloth held against the bleeding nose, the two men speaking beside the stool.
Oren managed to get his shield out from beneath him. He pushed it away and reached for the catch at his visor, fumbling once before he found it. His face emerged pale and wet. There was blood on his lower lip.
“I yield, my lord. My arm’s gone under me. Give me a moment and I’ll get clear.”
Elias heard every word. Oren spoke towards Rauth, lifting his empty right hand so there could be no mistake. The marshal called that the pass was ended. He was still several strides away when Rauth drew the narrow blade from his belt.
Oren tried to move backwards. His injured arm gave beneath him, and he caught himself awkwardly against the ground. Rauth took hold of the raised visor and forced his head back. Elias had time to see the knight’s free hand close around the lord’s wrist. Then the blade went in beneath his jaw.
For a moment Elias could not make sense of how little movement it required. The lord leaned his weight into it. Oren’s heel scraped a short trench beside the rail, and a sound came from him that Elias had never heard from a person. His hand remained around Rauth’s wrist until the fingers began to slide.
Elias recoiled from the gap. His stomach contracted so violently that he struck his shoulder against the brace trying to turn. Breakfast came up onto the bare earth beneath the seats. He could not draw breath between the first heave and the next. Behind him Will made a choking noise and bent forward on his hands, vomiting close beside the post. Elias reached towards him without looking and found the back of his waistcoat. He held it while his own stomach tightened again.
Above them the shouting had changed. Somebody screamed. A man’s boots struck the boards as he came down a row, and another voice demanded that people sit. Elias wiped his mouth against his sleeve, shaking so hard he could feel his teeth meet. He wanted air. The smell beneath the stand was unbearable, but beyond the cloth was the place where the knight had fallen, and he could not put his head out there again.
Will spat into the dirt. His ginger hair hung over his eyes, and he kept trying to swallow. Elias had seen him with a nail through his palm, furious and white-faced while his uncle pulled it free. He had never seen him like this. He tried to ask whether he was all right and discovered that he could not manage the words.
Outside, the marshal was speaking. Elias could hear the staff striking the earth as he moved closer. He made himself look through the gap because the man had reached them now, because there were rules and officers and guards enough to fill the field, and someone must have taken hold of Rauth.
The lord was standing beside the body, wiping his knife on a cloth his squire had brought. Oren lay with his face turned towards the rail. Elias saw his eyes and drew back far enough to hide them behind the hanging. He could still see the shield, the three birds, a red mark spreading across the ground beneath the knight’s head.
The marshal had stopped beyond Rauth’s reach. His staff remained raised, though lower than before. Whatever he said was lost beneath the voices in the stand. Rauth answered without turning from his squire, then looked towards the royal gallery. Elias followed his gaze.
The king had seen. Elias could tell from the way he sat forward, one hand on the arm of his chair, his attention fixed upon their end of the lists. The nearest guards were looking towards him. An official leaned down beside his shoulder and began speaking urgently, but the king did not look away from the field.
Elias waited for him to rise. He had only to point. The guards stood with swords at their sides; there were more at the steps, more along the entrance. Rauth was one man, and his helmet was still closed, and if they came from behind him he would not even see them until they had his arms.
Beside the queen, the hazelnut-haired princess moved abruptly forward. Her hands had left her lap. One gripped the front of the seat as though she meant to push herself out of it, and her face, turned towards Rauth, had changed so completely that Elias forgot for a moment how far away she was. He thought he saw fury. Her mouth moved as she turned to the king, and the force of whatever she said carried in the movement of her head.
The king answered without rising. Elias could not hear him. The princess remained leaning forward for another moment, her face still uncovered by the careful composure of those around her. Then she sat back. When the queen turned towards her, she was looking straight ahead, her hands together again.
Elias strained to see more. A servant crossed between them carrying a cup, stopped beside the king and moved away. The official was still talking. At last the king lifted his hand and made a small outward motion towards the field.
The marshal lowered his staff. For a few breaths nothing happened. Then the men waiting by the gate came forward with a stretcher. Rauth handed his cloth to his squire and walked towards his horse. No guard left the gallery. The king settled back into his chair while the herald approached the official at the foot of the steps.
Elias kept watching, certain there was something he had failed to understand. Perhaps the guards would take Rauth when he reached the gate. Perhaps the king wanted the body carried away first. He followed the lord as he accepted his reins and mounted, awkward for a moment under the weight of his armour. A groom steadied the stirrup for him. Rauth rode past two armed men and neither moved.
Will had pulled himself upright beside the brace. His mouth was wet, his face grey beneath the dirt. He stared at the small part of the field visible between Elias’s shoulder and the hanging.
“He told him he yielded. You heard it, didn’t you? He put his hand up so he’d know.” Will struggled to take a full breath. “The man with the staff called it finished. He was coming over. I thought he’d get there.”
“I heard him.” Elias had to stop and swallow before he could go on. “He wasn’t even holding anything. He’d put the shield down. The king was watching the whole time, Will. He’s still sitting there.”
Will leaned towards the opening, then recoiled when the men lifted Oren. Elias caught sight of an arm slipping from the stretcher. The squire who had struggled with the shield strap stooped to put it back. He had to lift the wrist with both hands, and after he laid it across his master’s body he stayed bent over it until one of the bearers spoke to him.
Elias wanted to crawl out. He wanted someone to tell that boy where to go, or help him with the shield, or stop Rauth from riding away while the dead man’s things were still scattered in the lane. He could not move beyond the edge of the cloth. The lord’s horse passed their stand and he shrank from its hooves before he could prevent himself.
Above them a man was saying that Merrow should have stayed down. Another answered that he had stayed down, that everyone had seen him. Their argument moved along the bench, lowered into something Elias could no longer follow. Somewhere farther away a woman was crying. Most of the field had grown quiet enough for the bearers’ steps to be heard as they carried the stretcher towards the gate.
Elias looked once more at the princess. She sat beneath the canopy with her sister beside her, her face still and her hair bright where it touched her shoulder. He had wanted her anger to mean that something would happen. He had been ready to believe in her on the strength of a movement glimpsed across a field. Now she remained in her seat while the men carried Oren past, and the longer he looked, the less certain he became that he had seen what he thought.
He resented having looked at her at all. It had been easy to sit here in the dirt and imagine that a beautiful face meant someone worth knowing. She had turned to her father; he had answered; she had folded her hands. Elias could not hear what she had said, and he hated that he was still trying to find a reason to excuse her.
The herald returned to the centre of the lists. His voice faltered on the first announcement, and he began again, calling the next pair forward. At the far end a squire led out a horse. Someone near the royal gallery started to applaud, a few uncertain claps that were taken up elsewhere.
Will caught Elias’s sleeve. “I want to go. I can’t sit here for another one. Help me get under that beam; I don’t think I can do it backwards.”
Elias turned at once. He moved the loaf out of the way, lay flat and guided Will’s shoulder beneath the brace. They had come through laughing, careless of the nails and the dirt. Now Will kept stopping, unable to find room for his knees, and Elias stayed close enough to put a hand against his back whenever he needed it. He left the bread beside the post. Neither noticed until they were outside.
Behind the stand a man was rinsing cups in a tub. He shouted when the hanging moved and the boys came out beneath it, but whatever he meant to say changed when he saw Will’s face. He pointed them towards a bucket beside the wagon and told them to keep clear of the drinking water.
Elias poured while Will washed his mouth. Most of the first handful ran between Will’s fingers. He steadied himself against the wagon wheel and tried again, then took the bucket so Elias could rinse. The water was warm. Elias spat until there was nothing left in his mouth but the taste of it, and still felt sick.
The cup seller asked whether they had been drinking. Will shook his head. Elias said they had been by the rail when the knight fell, and the man stopped scrubbing. He looked towards the stand, where another announcement was being made, then told them they could sit by the wagon for a while if they needed to.
They stayed until Will could stand without holding the wheel. A fly settled on the wet ground near Elias’s boot. He watched it rub its legs together, grateful for something small enough to look at without remembering the field. Beyond the hanging, a horse snorted and men began calling encouragement to its rider. Elias pressed the heel of his hand against his mouth.
When they could walk, they went back through the fair. The stalls were as crowded as before. A woman offered them a taste of cheese from the end of a knife; a child ran past with a ribbon tied around his wrist. At a toy seller’s board two wooden knights stood mounted on little wheeled horses, their lances raised towards one another. Will moved to the other side of Elias as they passed, putting him between himself and the stall.
Neither mentioned the bread until they reached the bakehouse. Elias remembered leaving it and stopped at the door, appalled for a moment that he had wasted something Anne would have saved down to the crumbs. Will said he was not hungry anyway. They stood together while a customer came out carrying a covered basket, then went inside.
Mara was alone at the table. She looked up with a complaint already forming about how long they had been, saw them properly and set down her knife.
“Come and sit here. Both of you. I’ll get my aunt if you’re hurt.” She pulled a stool clear with her foot, leaving room for them beside the wall. “Elias, tell me what’s happened.”
He had meant to fetch the bundles and leave. Thomas would be watching for him by evening, and he wanted the road, the village, somewhere with no banners overhead. But Mara was waiting, and Will had sat down with his hands held awkwardly between his knees, and Elias found that he could not begin with the tournament or the place beneath the seats.
“There was a knight called Oren. We were close enough to hear him speaking. He hurt his arm when he fell, and he told the other man he yielded.” His voice caught on the last word. He tried to swallow it away, but Mara had come round the table and was standing beside them. “He said it clearly. We both heard him.”
She stayed while he told her the rest. When Will began shaking again, she fetched water and a clean cloth, and moved their bundles away from the ladder so they would not have to leave them in her aunt’s way. Outside the door people were returning from the lists, discussing the riders as they waited to be served. Mara went over and pushed it nearly closed. Then she came back to the table, drew another stool beside theirs and sat down.
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