“Sorry, but things have changed.”
“But—”
“This isn’t a negotiation.” He rose, bowed to Ricard and Dahilla.
Zach shoved up from his stool, inflamed with rage like Jael had never seen him: pink and red tremoring flesh sweat-sheened and hued blue as an infant’s screaming asphyxiation. “If you want to leave, fine. Get on your own then, but she said she wants to stay.”
“Please, don’t fight,” Jael pleaded for peace—
“This doesn’t involve you, country boy,” the captain spat, his glare level with the goatherd’s. Without looking away, he commanded, “Come, Leonhardt, we’re leaving.”
“Yes sir.”
“I said she’s staying!”
—Her words went ignored, “Zach, please!”
Trey started for the door and stopped at the threshold, waited there till Leonhardt rose to follow.
“Jael, wait! I won’t let him treat you this way, like, like…like he owns you or something!” Zach rounded the table, “You hear that, pretty boy? You’re going to stop talking like you own her! Take back what you said or I’ll lay you out flat!”
God, please Trey, just ignore it, she wanted to beg. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, that it is incumbent upon a knight to never run from a challenge. Leonhardt darted to her father for a parting embrace. “I’ll come again to say goodbye tomorrow morning,” she said, then whispered, “And please, explain to Zach that this is just how it is. Help him understand.”
Ricard held her firm and in return whispered, “We love you, Jael, but there’s nothing I can do.”
She sighed, disappointed. “I understand.”
No later than he let her go did she make for the door. The captain had already gone outside, Zach in blind, angry pursuit. Leonhardt caught him just as he crossed the threshold, rounded his huge frame and made herself a stone in the road. Again, she pleaded with him, but it was too late in the goatherd’s mind. He muttered that she didn’t belong to the captain, that he wouldn’t accept it, him being so disrespectful—he had pride, too—then he moved her out of the way and met Trey in the yard. The knight was waiting for him, unarmed save for a rondel which he promptly tossed to Jael—scabbard and all.
†††
Nearly nineteen years prior, before the foot of the castle in the northern Summerlands, Duke Gildmane held a tourney in honour of Saint Lucius come to visit Aestas on his heir’s name day. It was the grandest tournament in living memory. The green, rolling fields were trampled into mud by hundreds of knights, men-at-arms, and the thousands that followed. Never before had that much wealth flowed through the north—oceans of schills and florns—every day a dozen thieves were behanded by the sword. For they were fools, thought the young sell-sword Ricard, his eyes on the prize purse: seventy-seven florns to the winner of the tilt, seventy-seven for the duels, and seventy-seven for the melee.
He’d arrive in Aestas by wagon from the west, hungry and pentless, and it would be another day until the tourney began. So through the camp grounds he wandered for some place to make a couple of coins, found one near a wine tap among a circle of baron-knights. She was a wisp of a girl, blonde and Summerland bred, with eyes meant for trouble to the baron-knights’ chagrin. They must have thought Ricard a poor sight in his hauberk and rust-stained aketon, a hand-me-down messer hanging from his belt. He thought the same of them and their queer, pointy half-helms and brigandine vests—said as much to one of the men—the one seated closest with the girl on his lap. The fool stood and growled and postured before his friends as cowards always did when they were afraid to initiate.
So Ricard asked the girl for her name, told her that she’d be better off spending the day with him than these east-blooded mummers. “It’s Dahilla,” she answered with a faerie grin, bright as her garland and eager for violence. Tugging at the baron-knight’s silk sleeve, she said. “Come on, Sir Żuraw. Are you going to let him talk to you that way?”
The man snarled at that, and his companions laughed till Dahilla drew the sword from Żuraw’s scabbard. At once, the baron-knight snatched it back—too late—Ricard had drawn his own blade by then. Clever, thought the sellsword. It was a matter of honour now. He glanced over at the girl. She wore a smile like a demon’s.
Ricard wiped his messer on his aketon after the fight. Most of the Sir Żuraw’s silks were still clean and would fetch a good price if sold in consort with the helm and brigandine. By law, the sword was for the baron-knights’ to keep, and there was no horse to claim, so in its place, he stole the girl instead. She stayed with him that day and through the night, and come morning convinced him to pay so she could sit up front for the duels. “You better be there to cheer for me when I win.”
“You? You’re going to win? You know Lucius’s men are competing, right? Do you think you’re going to beat the whole Temple Guard?”
“What if I do?”
She laughed at him, impish. “I’ll marry you, then.”
“I bet you’ve said that to every man whose bed you shared.”
“It’s not been that many!” she shot back at him, “and besides, they all died the day I did.”
“So it’s not lying so long as they die, is that it? And you’re thinking the same will happen to me. You made a mistake, girl. I’m not going to die today. I’m going to win, and I’m going to hold you to that promise, whether you meant it or not.”
And so he did. Sixteen rounds of tourney duels came and went, all of them to first blood, no accidental deaths—a boring event. Ricard had fought twice by then. Both opponents were careless, thought themselves invulnerable in their armour till he put them on their backs and tore open their helms. “Yield!” they screamed, but he cut them all the same. A slash
