The Knave and the Moon — Chapter no 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

A SHOW OF STRENGTH

The next morning the wind was bitter, the rain harsh, and folk of the Peaks called it fine weather. I stood beneath a canvas tent at the lip of the basin.

With me were Tory, Samuel, Avice Fischer, and the king. Benji held an enormous bowl filled with the tournament proceeds—hundreds of gold coins—like he had in the other hamlets. This one was crude, hewn of granite and clearly heavier than he preferred. He was stooping to hold it up.

Behind him, drawing more awe than even the heaps of gold in his hands, stood the tournament champions. Maude and the knave.

Around the basin, come to watch the revelry, were hundreds of fisherfolk in oiled leather. They’d made the treacherous journey up the mountain—if they could not be fed by fish, perhaps a good show would satiate them.

It was not like Coulson Faire, where music and coin resounded, nor was it like the Seacht, the crowd stomping and chanting. Here, folk were stoic, stern, but even that was its own kind of verve—the air was taut with anticipation.

Avice Fischer stepped from beneath the King’s tent. “Folk of the Peaks,” she called. “These are trying times. An earthquake has rattled our hamlet, our homes, our beloved Tenor River. Fish are scarce, and a craftsman

without a craft is a forsaken creature.” She knotted her fingers in a net. “But we of the Peaks, full of vigor, know that the rain falls, the wind blows.

What is harrowing is hallowed.”

Folk around the basin nodded.

“We will prevail. We always do—and we will do it through strength.”

She waved at the water. “There will be three feats—”

Benji cleared his throat behind her.

Avice stopped midsentence, looking over her shoulder at the king. Her thin face grew thinner. She was biting the insides of her cheeks. “But of course, I would be remiss not to thank King Benedict Castor and his Diviner for this opportunity to celebrate their union and demonstrate just how vigorous folk of the Peaks truly are.”

Benji set down his gold and waved to the crowd, but none waved back, their enthusiasm for their king the same as their mien—cold, stoic.

Fingers rubbing over the surface of the Artful Brigand’s coin, Benji came to stand before Avice. “Thank you, Avice. Your support is greatly appreciated.”

He put a hand to her shoulder and waited. Avice’s face was gaunt now, her jaw set. The king was waiting for her to lower herself to her knees before him, and for a moment I didn’t think she would. No matter what he had gifted her, wealth, the castle at our backs, Avice Fischer was a noble of Traum; she saw Benji just as Regius Ormsby and Otto Lange did.

Temporal. A king who would come, then go.

Slowly, stiffly, Avice lowered herself to her knees.

“Vigor, strength,” Benji said as he peered down at her, “is greatly needed in the Stonewater Kingdom. But never forget, it is not you who brings greatness to the hamlets, but me, the Omens, and my Diviner who speaks for them.”

Avice nodded curtly. She hauled herself to her feet, then moved to stand several paces away.

Benji turned. He did not throw his coin—did not appear or disappear in a flurry. The boy liked his applause, but he was clever enough to know that here there would be none. “You have given me your strongest, and I thank you,” he called over the crowd, the wind adding a forcefulness to his voice.

“There will be three feats of strength. The first demonstrates mastery of water, as any oarsman and fisherman must.” He threw his hand out,

gesturing to the opposite side of the basin. “A race.”

We all turned to the water.

And watched as the tournament participants spilled out of the castle.

There were twelve of them, Hamelin at the lead. It was the first time I’d seen him out of armor; he wore waxen leathers like the other craftsmen of his hamlet. So did the eleven other men and women behind him, each of them fitted with a net over their shoulders and a belt across their waist, where they each carried a hammer. So, too, did Hamelin.

He also had the Ardent Oarsman’s oar fastened to his belt.

I stood on my toes, searching the line of participants, heart in my throat.

They were all by the water now, stretching and wetting their hands. Samuel handed Benji a purple banner, and the king stepped out from beneath the tent. “Ready.”

The participants stepped into the water. I could see Hamelin’s smile as

he looked down the line.

Benji raised the flag— “Wait,” I shouted, pointing across the basin. “There’s one more participant.”

A bright spot of color against the endless mountainous gray, the gargoyle stepped out of the castle and joined the others at the lip of the basin. The wind picked up, carrying the sound of his voice as he hummed. The rest of the participants went still, and so did Benji and Avice and the other knights

next to me.

Samuel guffawed. “The gargoyle?”

“Who the hell paid his fee?” Tory asked.

“I did.” Maude crossed her arms. “You’ve an issue with that?”

The two knights looked at Maude’s axe and held their tongues.

“It’s absurd,” Benji spat. “He’s—he’s—”

Avice approached. “Surely you won’t permit this mockery of vigor, King Castor.”

Benji wasn’t the only one choking on the sight before him. The crowd began to murmur, words like gargoyle and sprite and Aisling blowing in the wind. And those words each held so much weight—and counterweight— that folk did not seem to know if the spectacle laid out before them was sacred or sacrilege. What a destabilizing contradiction. In pink.

“Hamelin said it himself once,” I told the king. “Anyone might compete

in the tournament. It’s not for everyone—knights are better trained, better fed, better educated. Common nobodies could never win these events, but it gives them hope, dreaming that they might. And hope is exactly the kind of thing Avice Fischer wants to keep captive in her hamlet.” I turned to Avice.

“Isn’t that right?”

The noblewoman’s flesh sat tightly against the bones of her face. She turned from me to Benji as if to ask: Does he know what I offered you at his

own feast table?

I tilted my head to the side. Not yet.

Avice cleared her throat. “Then again, folk of the Peaks have paid for a show—give them the one they know by heart. Man always prevails over the sprite. By all means, sire. Let the gargoyle compete.”

Across the basin, the gargoyle was meticulously taking off his robe, then folding it neatly over stones. He’d been given a net the same as the other participants, and he draped it like a scarf around his neck. Then he took his hammer, the one Rory had given him, came up to the lip of the basin beside the other participants, and waited.

The audience turned to Benji, and he, by instinct, glanced over his shoulder at Maude and Rory, waiting on them to weigh in.

His champions stood still as statues.

Benji flushed, realizing his mistake, and looked away. With no complaint from Avice, from his knights or even folk of the Peaks, the king raised his purple flag. Exhaled. And waved it.

The swimmers dove into the water.

There was a rush—the crowd moving with haste toward their side of the basin for a better look. Water churned, low waves coming up as the swimmers beat their arms and legs. I could see Hamelin; he was already ahead of the others, his arms moving in perfect arcs, parsing the water, putting distance between himself and the other swimmers.

The gargoyle was still on the shore, eyeing the water warily. He crept forward. Dipped a toe in. Shrieked.

“Swim, Bartholomew,” Maude called. “Swim!”

He threw his head back. “It’s cold!”

“Who bloody cares? Get in!”

“Don’t shout at him.” I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Move your stone ass, Bartholomew! You look like a water fowl out there!”

He shrieked again, said something profane against birds, stomped into the water, and disappeared beneath it.

The waves doubled, heartened by the swimmers. Hamelin, now in the center of the basin, was still in the lead, though he was not outdistancing the others as he’d been. An oarswoman on his left was gaining on him, her narrow body moving through the water like an arrow, her kicks barely making a splash.

Steam blew from Hamelin’s mouth when he came up for air. When he saw how close some of the other swimmers had drawn, he lost a stroke, his pace stalling. I clenched my fist and shook it with glee. Imagined if the git drowned.

But then the swell, the choppy waves, shifted, no longer slapping against the shore of the basin, as if recalled. Hamelin’s strokes slowed even more, one, two, then three swimmers passing him.

Suddenly, he began to move.

A new wave formed behind Hamelin, and when he set his arms back into the water and began to swim, that wave propelled him forward. He passed the other swimmers, leaving them to fight against the swell, moving faster, faster across the basin to the other side.

“He’s using the oar,” Rory hissed.

Hamelin was nearing the edge of the basin now, the wave at his back as swift as a running horse. I was on my toes again, hands locked in knots as I searched the water for the gargoyle.

Thirty yards. Twenty. Ten. Hamelin was almost to the shore.

But then—just there. The tip of a stone wing, like the dorsal fin of a whale, peeked through the water just ahead of him.

I let out a triumphant laugh, the sound echoing through the Peaks, disrupting its silent stoicism. Avice glared at me and so did Benji, but then the knave began to cheer, too, and so did Maude, and it was not just one voice against an entire hamlet’s silence, but three.

“Come on, Bartholomew,” Maude cried. “You’re almost there!”

He was. He was ahead of Hamelin, not just his wing, but now his ears and forehead peeking out of the water.

Hamelin saw him. Faltered once more, his momentum stalling. The wave beneath him went still. The stone oar shifted in the water— A new wave came, harsher and quicker than the others. It crashed

against the gargoyle. His wing fell beneath the water, arms and legs churning as the wave tossed him.

Two seconds later, Hamelin stepped onto the shore and was named the winner. His mother rushed out to join him, and together they raised the Ardent Oarsman’s oar, folk of the Peaks lifting their own hands in accordance.

“Only the oar…” Hamelin called, out of breath. He searched for me in the crowd and grinned. “Only vigor… can Divine.”

The gargoyle stomped out of the water just as the other swimmers reached the shore. I thought he might cry for the injustice of it all, but he didn’t. He didn’t even pout. He was looking at Hamelin with the same ornery scowl he’d once tendered the abbess. Like he thought him quite the bitch.

The next feat had already been prepared. Knights moved through the crowd, ushering folk away from twelve giant pieces of mountain rock that had been laid out. One by one, the participants came forth, stepped up to a rock, and were handed an iron spike.

The gargoyle squared off with the stone closest to us, and Hamelin the one next over.

“The rules are simple,” Avice called. “The first man or woman who breaks their rock in half wins.”

Once more, Benji raised the purple flag. Once more, heart in my throat, I watched it fall.

The noise was cataclysmic. Arms swung, hammers hit spikes, and iron buried itself in stone. Bang, bang, bang. His stone oar couldn’t help him this time—Hamelin was throwing all his might into his hammer. Even I could see how strong he was, how he never missed his mark, how the spike drove deeper, deeper into his rock.

“I say, Bartholomew.” The gargoyle was shouting over the clamor.

“What an extraordinary arm you have. A shame the rest of you is not half as impressive.”

“Oh, for the love of—Bartholomew!” I hollered. “Don’t just stand there —hit the damn thing!”

He looked back at me, puzzlement on his face.

Rory was trembling to hold still and say nothing. Maude was practically jumping out of her skin. “The iron spike,” she shouted, swinging her arm,

mimicking a hammer strike. “Hit it!”

Avice shot her a chilly gaze. “Strange that your own bride and champion should side with a sprite, King Castor.”

“Ignore them.” Benji’s voice was missing a vital piece of thread. “Hit it, Hamelin!”

The gargoyle looked down at the pike for the first time. He leaned down.

Sniffed it. Meanwhile, Hamelin and a few of the other participants had already chipped away several bits of their rocks. Some had even begun to sprout long cracks.

“Come on, Bartholomew.” I began to clap. “Hit it.”

It was my applause, I think, that did it. Fingers trilling on the handle of Rory’s hammer, the gargoyle closed one eye and trained the other on the spike. With painfully slow precision, he lifted his hammer, raising it until it was level with the crown of his head. Giggled to himself.

And swung.

Boom.

I thought it might be another earthquake—another peak, crumbling. I hadn’t heard a sound that loud and clear and violent since Aisling Cathedral had fallen. Every head turned, every mouth fell—even Avice’s.

The gargoyle’s rock had broken in two, the split so clean there was hardly any dust, save the haze of limestone that bloomed off his back.

I threw my head back and cheered.

There was one feat left.

Avice gave her son a pointed look and raised her voice. “A valiant show of strength from all. Winners, hold out your nets.”

Hamelin retrieved his from his belt, and the gargoyle took his from his neck.

“Take one half of the rock that was split,” Avice called. “Place it in your net.”

They did as they were told, Hamelin grunting as he lifted his half of the rock, the gargoyle humming.

“Stand before us on the shore,” Avice instructed.

The crowd surged forward as if dragged on a hook.

“Our nets are the strongest in all of Traum.” Avice’s voice echoed over the water. “They do not fray, do not tear, even when confronted by immeasurable weight. That is how we of the Peaks are. We do not

deteriorate, even when hardship proves an impossible burden to carry.”

She nodded to Hamelin and the gargoyle. “With one hand, lift your net, and the rock within. Prove the merit of your strength. He”—her mouth turned at the gargoyle—“or it who holds their net the longest is the winner and shall be named champion, the strongest in all of Traum.”

Hamelin fisted the net in his right hand, and so did the gargoyle. It was the arm that had the fewest cracks.

Once more, Benji stepped forward. Gone was the jovial expression he’d worn at the joust, the melee. I knew his face well enough. He was looking at the gargoyle, then at Hamelin—and losing faith that his knight could win.

The flag dropped, and the nets were lifted.

Rory and Maude and I leaned forward, our breaths coming sharp and fast. “Come on, Bartholomew,” Maude said.

He was holding the net—and the granite within it, high. It swung idly beside him and did not quiver, his hold steady and sure. Hamelin’s was, too.

But as the minutes passed, Hamelin’s cheeks grew red—he was hissing out breaths and barely taking any in. Soon, his arm began to quiver.

The gargoyle’s did not. He was a creature of the tor—stout and strong as stone. He did not falter, did not shake, did not do anything but look pleasantly forward and hum.

But even that sent tiny flecks of limestone flying from his back.

“Come on, Hamelin,” Samuel shouted. A few other knights joined in, cheering him. “Do not diminish.”

But the king’s favorite wasn’t just shaking in the arm anymore. His entire body was trembling. His eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth. The signs were clear—ten minutes of holding the rock had doomed him to drop it.

Hamelin’s nostrils flared, sweat falling down his face. He looked at his mother, then at the gargoyle, loathing coating his gaze. Still managing to hold on to the net, he dropped his other hand, fumbling for the Ardent Oarsman’s oar. When it came loose, he dropped it, blade down, into the shallow water behind him.

A wave rose from the heart of the basin, rushed forward, then crashed into the gargoyle’s back.

“He’s a cheat,” I shouted. “He can’t do that!”

Benji and Avice leaned forward, saying nothing, and Hamelin—he was

stirring the Ardent Oarsman’s oar again. Another wave came, faster than the one before. When it slammed against the gargoyle, I heard him whimper, his head bent low against the assault of water. Still, he did not lose his footing or drop his net.

Hamelin tried again—another brutal wave. Again, he failed to fell the gargoyle, who stood unwavering, stronger than the strongest man in the Fervent Peaks.

Hamelin’s net began to slip. He shouted through his teeth, his eyes wide and bloodshot, and I should have seen it coming—should have known desperate men do grievous things, because in his last effort to win the feats of strength, Hamelin did not drop the Ardent Oarsman’s oar into the water.

He slammed it into the gargoyle’s back instead.

There was a burst of limestone—a sharp, agonizing cry.

I screamed.

Hamelin raised the oar to strike him again. The gargoyle, still holding his net, turned, catching the oar in his free hand. Cracks ripped up his arm, but the gargoyle did not waver. He simply bared his fangs, let out a thunderous growl that washed the fervor from Hamelin’s face— And snapped the Ardent Oarsman’s oar in half.

Benji gasped like it had been his own spine to break. Avice went rigid and Hamelin—Hamelin was looking at the pieces of the broken oar like he could not fathom a world in which a creature as powerless as a sprite might evince more vigor than him. Eyes wide, jaw loose, Hamelin Fischer dropped his net, his rock slamming against the shore, signaling the end of

the feat.

The gargoyle had won.

But then Hamelin reached for the hammer on his belt. Looked at the gargoyle as all knights look upon sprites—a creature only worthy when

dead. He raised his hammer.

I was already running.

Before Hamelin’s weapon could meet its mark, my shoulder caught his middle, knocking him off his feet and away from the gargoyle, dropping both of us into the shallow waters of the basin. I landed on top, leveled a fist, and hit Hamelin so hard across the jaw I heard a snap. He shouted, bucking and swiping at me, but I was a weight too great for him to dislodge —I hit him again and again, blood coating my knuckles.

Somewhere in the distance, the king and Avice Fischer were shouting.

Hamelin hollered. Kicked and hit and shoved me. His face was bleeding, his eyes wide, his mouth turned by unmistakable revulsion. And I knew what I’d known since the moment we’d met—he didn’t care for me, didn’t desire me—didn’t wish to wed or even fuck me. All a man like Hamelin Fischer wanted was to be stronger than everyone around him. But I hadn’t given him anything—I wouldn’t give him that, either. I hit him once more over the face, then pressed him into the shallows of the basin, the crystalline waters going a murky brown as they sopped up his blood.

Hamelin choked. Reached up. Caught my throat. The king was still calling, frenzied upon the shore. Hamelin’s fingers anchored themselves into the flesh of my neck, and he threw me down into the basin beside him.

I breathed chill water into my lungs.

Hamelin had gotten to his knees. Blood on his teeth, jaw hanging unnaturally, he peered down at me like he still might prove himself the strongest man in all of Traum. He raised his hammer over my head. I heard Rory shout my name. Hamelin pulled back. Swung his hammer— A thundering sound echoed through the peaks. Thousands of shards flew, hitting my face, some hard and cold, others hot and viscous. When I looked back, Maude and Rory were holding the gargoyle, chunks of limestone all around him—but his net, and the granite within, were still held high.

Next to them, the king was leaning forward, eyes wide and glassy, the Artful Brigand’s coin no longer in his hand. He’d thrown it, saving me from Hamelin’s clinching blow, obliterating the hammer in his knight’s hand.

And taking half of Hamelin Fischer’s head along with it.

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