system of levers and pulleys any gnome would envy, to a seat mounted above a large tub brimming with water. Cardjaf Duhar occupied the target seat in all his usual finery, looking a little embarrassed at being found in such an undignified situation.
For a modest sum, onlookers received three small bags filled with sand to hurl at the target. A long line of people eager to test their skill wound from the booth and out into the field. So far, no one had been able to hit the target. Cardjaf Duhar sat secure and dry, for all his chagrin.
'Excuse me,' someone was saying as Gerard approached. 'Excuse me, please.'
The people waiting their turn parted to allow a very determined-looking Gatrice Duhar to step the front of the line. She smiled her apologies at those she had displaced, who appeared to accept her right to preeminence in this matter, and paid her sum to the man working the booth. When she had received her bags of sand, she hefted one, considering its weight.
'This is for uprooting me against my will from my home in Palanthas,' she cried loudly, and lobbed the first bag.
It missed by a wide margin, sending a chuckle rippling through the crowd of onlookers. Duhar shifted nervously on his seat.
'This is for bringing me to such a'-she hesitated, considering the people around her-'such a bucolic paragon of social distinction.'
As onlookers looked questioningly at their neighbors, trying to decipher her words, she threw the second bag. It too missed, though by a narrower margin.
'And this,' she announced, hefting the final bag, 'well, this one, Cardjaf Duhar, is simply because. After twenty-five years of marriage, I'm sure I must owe it to you for something.'
She hurled the bag, putting her whole body into the effort. The bag smacked into the target, setting levers and pulleys in motion and dumping Duhar into the tub. He landed with a splash that sent onlookers scurrying back from the spray. For a moment, he disappeared beneath the surface. Almost immediately, he burst forth again, sputtering and gasping at the shock of cold water. The onlookers laughed and hooted. Gatrice Duhar beamed at her success.
'And try not to track water all through the house when you come home!' she warned her husband as he struggled to clamber over the side of the tub. 'I just had the floors cleaned and would hate to have the work all undone so soon.'
With a haughty toss of her chin, she turned and strode away. The revelers doffed their caps and parted before her as if making way for a queen, which in a way is exactly what she felt herself to be. Gerard grinned and went to help Duhar as he sloshed and squished the short distance from the tub to a ladder. As Gerard held the ladder steady, Duhar climbed with injured pride back into his seat, where he awaited the next onlooker eager to try his skill.
Gerard was about to wander on, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. 'Excuse me, sir,' said a boy, who looked nervous at addressing the sheriff, 'but they sent me to say it's time for the swordplay demonstration.'
Gerard nodded and followed the lad to a square ring marked off with ropes. The boy hung back as Gerard climbed over the ropes and into the ring. Vercleese was already waiting, a crimson sash around his waist designating him as the referee. He pointed to a pile of armor in one corner of the ring, and Gerard put it on, strapping and buckling the burnished plates in place. When Gerard had everything arranged to his satisfaction, including a serviceable, blunted sword at his waist, he turned, cradling the helmet under one arm, and faced his opponent in the opposite corner. Blair Windholm stood similarly attired, a deep scowl on his face as he studied Gerard.
Vercleese motioned them forward into the center of the ring. 'No thrusting with points, no blows with the sharp of the blade,' the knight told the two contestants. 'They're dulled but still dangerous. We want to give the citizens an exhibition of skill, not a bloodbath.'
Gerard nodded his agreement. So did Blair, though his expression suggested he would have preferred to have done otherwise.
'Then let the competition begin,' Vercleese announced, stepping aside from the two combatants. They settled their helmets into place and squared off, feinting and circling at first to feel out their opponent's weaknesses. Blair roared and charged, slamming into Gerard and catching him a stiff blow with the flat of his sword. Gerard careened away, momentarily off balance.
The ferocity of the charge startled Gerard. He quickly resumed his stance on the balls of his feet and shifted his weight from side to side, letting his body remember the feel of armor, rediscovering the moves the armor permitted. When Blair again charged, foolishly attempting the same maneuver, Gerard was ready. He deftly sidestepped and sent Blair sprawling by slipping his sword between the sergeant's frantically churning legs. Then he waited for Blair to regain his feet.
Blair was more wary after that, although his style continued to rely more on brute force than on technique. After the initial attack, Gerard easily parried most of his blows, treating Blair as he would have treated a raw initiate into the knighthood who still possessed more enthusiasm than polish. Frequently, he sent Blair reeling across the ring, howling with frustrated rage. Gerard wondered at the vehemence of the sergeant's attacks, and several times Vercleese had to hiss a reminder not to use the sharp of the blade as Blair hacked away furiously at Gerard.
Finally, Vercleese called the match, awarding it to Gerard. Gerard wrenched off his helmet and drew in deep lungfuls of the
Gerard began unbuckling the armor, still keeping a watchful eye on Blair. The sergeant also began stripping off the steel plates, avoiding Gerard's eyes. His head hung as if in shame. As soon as he was finished, he climbed from the ring and shouldered his way through the crowd that had gathered to watch, ignoring the hisses and catcalls directed at him for failing to congratulate the winner. Gerard let him go, recalling the expression of fury on Blair's face when Gerard had danced with Kaleen. Clearly Blair was jealous, and that was an issue he and the sergeant had yet to resolve.
After thanking Vercleese, Gerard again wandered through the fair. He watched an egg toss for a time, where two lines of paired contestants faced each other across an open space, each pair tossing an egg back and forth across the ever-widening distance separating the two. The crowd hooted and laughed whenever an egg broke, splattering the would-be receiver with its contents and disqualifying the pair from winning the competition. When only one duo remained, the judge held their egg aloft, then hurled it to the ground, where it too burst, ensuring the winners hadn't somehow switched a boiled egg for the raw one they had been given. The crowd applauded, and the next round of contestants hurriedly took their places, lining up along the field.
In another area, a tug-of-war was under way, with two teams of burly men straining and heaving at the rope. Between the teams, a yawning mud pit, specially dug for the purpose, awaited the losers. Occasionally, a small boy or young woman would dart from the crowd to lend his or her questionable strength to a favored team, only to be chased away, laughing, by the referees.
The happy day wore on. Gerard bought a midday meal of roast chicken from one of the vendors and munched on it as he strolled through the fair. He watched a kender win the greased-pole climb, and Gerard was as amazed as everyone else in the crowd when the kender somehow managed to alight from his task with clothes unsmudged, grinning and holding the prize purse aloft. Gerard shook his head amazedly. Apparently, the creatures were immune even to ordinary assaults of nature, if one could manage that climb without getting smeared with grease.
At the dunking booth, someone new had replaced Cardjaf Duhar, who had undoubtedly gone home to change. His replacement, still in dry clothes, jeered and taunted the contestants who took their turns trying to hit the target and dunk him. If his intention was to rile them and disrupt their aim, his efforts were proving successful, for most throws flew well wide of their target.
A little farther on, Gerard came to a cleared area where contestants demonstrated their prowess at another kind of throwing. But instead of three bags of sand, for a fee contestants were given three balanced throwing knives, which they aimed at a series of small blocks of wood some fifty yards away. Each block sported a quill feather, stuck into the block as a target. Gerard, who had to squint even to see the targets adequately from this distance, oohed and aahed with the rest of the onlookers as contestants occasionally landed a knife in one of the
