The Knave and the Moon — Chapter no 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

LET THE TOURNAMENT BEGIN

Iturned down a parallel row of tents, Maude hissing after me.

Sybil moved more slowly than the other knights, her gait stiff, and the party soon outdistanced her, but one knight remained. She had a round face, small lips, and dark beady eyes. Weasel Face, I named her. They spoke in low voices. I crept between tents to hear.

“Would you like me to help you get there faster?” Weasel Face asked Sybil.

Sybil’s answer came slowly, her voice half-rough, half-melodic, its sound lighting sparks in my body. “The others are already celebrating in the arena, and you’re stuck being my bodyguard.” She scoffed. “Must be difficult, drawing the short straw.”

“There was no short straw, Diviner,” Weasel Face said. “I volunteered.”

Sybil’s laugh was cold. “Out of the goodness of your heart and not at all because of that stone around your neck, I’m sure.”

Weasel Face kept her gaze forward. “If the king did not think you needed help moving about the castle, he would not have permitted me to keep it.”

Sybil ran her fingertips over the canvas of a nearby stall and kept walking. “I’m fine.”

Two seconds later, Maude and the gargoyle caught up with me, plastering themselves against my back and whispering in my ear.

“Pith, Rory, we need to get into the arena.”

“Damn these slippers.” The gargoyle was trying to balance on his toes.

“I want to see Bartholomew!” When I put a finger up, silencing them both, unable to rip my gaze away from Sybil, he gave my arm a pinch. “You think she’s pretty,” he said, matter-of-fact. “So pretty you don’t even know how to tell her.”

My breath quickened as I watched Sybil move through the crowd. I couldn’t see her face behind that veil, and yet I was overcome. What an unholy place my mind was—I couldn’t escape from thinking how perfect she might look if she plunged her hand into my chest, removed my heart, and gnawed its toughened tissue between her teeth until her clothes were stained red. “She’s… so…”

The gargoyle consoled me with a pat on the back. “You’ll get there someday.”

On the walkway, folk were gazing at Sybil, eyes wide, jaws slackened by awe. She ignored them, her conversation with Weasel Face ongoing.

“You put my things in the room at the back of the stables, yes?”

“Yes,” Weasel Face replied. “Though you’ll find no need for the hammer. Not for the joust.” She paused. “Forgive me, Diviner. I was under the impression that you did not know how to ride.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“If you aim to knock Benedict from his saddle, you will not succeed.

He’s been training these last several weeks. You have been inactive in that room atop the castle.” Weasel Face’s dark eyes lowered to Sybil’s body.

“You should not fight in the tourney, Diviner.”

Maude and I shared a glance.

“Swords and armor,” Sybil said flatly, “are nothing to stone.”

“And yet even stone falters,” Weasel Face bit back, imploring. “You know it as well as the rest of us do—the cathedral fell. It will join Der ewige Mond in the annals of time as another looming creature whose power, whose lore, was made all the more fantastic for being conquered.”

Her voice tightened. Again, she said, “You should not fight. It would not be worthy of you to be conquered in something as senseless as a tournament.”

The conversation shattered with a crash. Maude jumped, and so did

Sybil and Weasel Face. I put a steadying hand out for the gargoyle—

And found he wasn’t there.

“Shit.”

Maude’s head whipped right, then left. “Where’d he go?”

Shouts echoed ahead. When I peeked out from behind the tent, two figures appeared in the grassy walkway—a merchant, hands waving wildly, and a stout figure in pink robes. “Thief!” the merchant cried. “He’s stolen my wares!”

The gargoyle, who’d stolen a vase full of flowers, zigzagged through tents, throwing marigolds as he went. Meanwhile, the merchant, who was still shouting, spotted Sybil and her escort. “Well?” he shouted. “Aren’t you going to defend my honor? My stall has been assailed!”

Weasel Face rolled her eyes. “I’ll be right back, Diviner.” She reached for something tangled in her coif.

That’s when I saw it. A small stone with a hole in its center, hung on a silver chain around Weasel Face’s neck.

Maude and I leaned forward, watching as Weasel Face put her finger through the stone, smooth side down. A moment later she vanished, then reappeared thirty paces in the distance, darting between tents.

“Aisling’s motherfucking waters.” Maude was holding in a laugh. She patted my back. “That’s it, my boy. The loom stone—and your mark. Wait for her to come back. I’ll get Bartholomew.”

“What about Sybil?”

“Not yet.”

Maude left me hiding behind the stall. Paces ahead, Sybil remained on the walkway, rolling her shoulders, then her neck, popping the joints. When the wind pushed against her, her robes pressed over her body as if sculpted there. I wanted to twist the fabric in my fist. Touch the thing that was touching her.

The merchant clearly felt the same. He eyed Sybil sheepishly, then grew bolder, approaching with his hands behind his back. “I went to Aisling Cathedral every year,” he told her. “I never had enough coin for a Divination, but I prayed, Diviner. To the Artful Brigand. For fine portents and finer profits.” His voice hitched. “I wept to hear that the cathedral had fallen.”

Sybil spared him a glance, then moved down the walkway.

“Pray,” the merchant said, catching up, “could you tell me if the Artful Brigand favors me still? I’ve fallen on hard times and need…” He blinked, and the next moment he was on his knees in front of her. “Please, Diviner.”

He wrapped his arms around Sybil’s abdomen, squeezing her stomach. “I

need something to believe in.”

She gasped. A visceral sound of pain.

My body was already in motion. Next I knew, my fingers were locked in a fist around the merchant’s collar. I yanked him back so hard and so fast he didn’t even see me until I was standing over him. “Get back to your stall,” I told him, vitriol searing the inside of my helmet. “Now.”

Peeling himself off the grass, tripping and running, he did.

Sybil’s arms pressed protectively over her stomach. I thought she might say something—pith, say anything—but all she did was stick up her nose, skirt around me, and make her way toward the arena.

Pulse in my ears, I stepped into her path.

She tried a second time to go around me. One step and I was blocking

her way.

Hot air shot from her nose. “Move.”

“Are you all right?”

“Excuse me?”

“He grabbed you. It seemed to hurt.”

I couldn’t tell where she was looking through that veil, but I was certain she was combing the slit of my visor, and certain twice over that she did not recognize me. She looked, but did not seem to see, stepping around me a third time without so much as a bid-you-well and hurrying down the walkway. I searched for Weasel Face and her loom stone—for Maude and the gargoyle—adrift with limited instructions and no bloody memory.

But then my body remembered, and my feet took me where I needed to go. Unreservedly, as if born to do so, I followed Sybil Delling into the arena.

Like an arrow shot, Sybil’s path was straight. Paying guards and knights

and their nervous horses no heed, and me even less, she marched through the wide corridor on the bottom level of the arena, pushing through doors into emptied stables so newly constructed I could smell the freshly milled oak, the hay on the ground still young and dry.

I thought she might be after a horse, and indeed she found what she was looking for in a stall, but it wasn’t a horse.

It was a suit of armor, set upon the hay. Chainmail. Under armor.

Sybil leaned over, examining it all with a kind of dedication I envied—I wanted her to look at me that way. “A fine suit,” I blurted, pitching my voice lower than usual. “No helmet, though.”

She didn’t answer. She was looking at the under armor, a padded shirt and pants. Atop of them, nestled in the fabric like an iron babe, was a hammer.

Sybil lifted the tool and weighed it in her palm. I could tell right away that she was displeased. Breath hissed out her nose. She discarded the hammer with a flick of her wrist, dropping it into the hay, then snatched up

the pants.

I waited like an idiot, watching her.

Robes hiking up to reveal bare feet and ankles and the impressive curve of calf muscles, Sybil slipped one leg into the pants, then the other.

Something in the back of my skull told me there were rules about watching a woman dress. What did propriety demand if that woman had already fucked you, I wondered. What did it demand if she didn’t know it was you, and you, to your eternal dismay, had no memory of said fucking?

“If you’re going to stand there panting like a lecher,” Sybil said, making me jump, “be of some use, guard. Fetch me a lance.” She made a hot sound of annoyance. “A horse, too.”

And I might have. Except she’d begun to undo her white silken robe, abandoning it for the padded shirt. When the robe fell, revealing the thin straps of a chemise, pale skin and bare shoulders and a muscled back—a feast for my eyes—not even the arena falling in around us could have moved me from that spot.

Sybil perked her ear. When she did not hear me hopping to fulfill her demands, she turned, putting a fever in my cheeks. Her chemise was thin.

Even in the dim light of the stables I had no trouble making out the shape of her. Sternum, breasts, abdomen. But then my gaze snagged low on her

stomach. There, the white of her chemise was marred, a pinkish-orange stain upon the fabric. Not blood, but the ghost of it.

I remembered her hands pressing protectively over her stomach when the merchant had grabbed her. The visceral sound of pain when she’d cried out.

Something vile twisted in my gut. “You never answered my question.

Are you hurt?”

“What entitles you to a response?” Her veil rippled as she looked me up and down. “Or you do require recompense for meager services rendered, saving me from that poor merchant?” She sneered, then held out her empty palms. “The only god of men may be coin, but I’ve none to give.”

The words ricocheted in my helmet. “If I was going to ask for a token, it

would hardly be silver or gold.”

“What, then? A Divination?”

I gave half a shrug. “A kiss would do fine.”

Her cool edifice was implacable. She stayed still a long while, watching me. “An unscrupulous thing for a guard to say to a queen.”

“No one ever accused me of being clever.”

“What’s your name, knave?”

“What’s yours?”

The muscles in her hands tightened. Not so implacable, then. I’d surprised her, though I didn’t know how, and for a moment neither of us did anything but look at the other’s mask, I at her veil, she at my helmet, and breathe.

Weasel Face appeared out of nothingness, a scowl etched onto her brow and a jousting lance swung over her shoulder.

Sybil’s gaze broke from my face.

“Pith, Coulson Faire is going to the dogs,” Weasel Face said. “The thief was a deranged vagabond. He dropped what he’d stolen, sneezed in my face, and scuttled away. Bloody waste of time.”

Above us, a thumping began, shaking the ceiling and stirring the hay.

Applause sounded like rolling thunder.

The joust was beginning.

“We’re running late, Diviner.” Weasel Face peered at Sybil’s armor, still lying in the hay. “It would go faster if you’d take a squire.”

“I don’t want a new one.” Sybil reached for the lance, took it in her right

hand.

And flinched.

Her fingers went white over on the grip at the base. It was not that she could not lift the thing—her arm made short work of that. No, it was something else. The pink stain on the fabric of her chemise had turned red.

She was bleeding.

My voice scraped out of me. “What the fuck is that?”

Sybil didn’t answer, her entire focus spent on holding the lance. For every second that she did, her skin paled and the lines of her body stiffened.

Weasel Face shoved past me and pushed the lance down. “That wound should have healed better than that by now, Diviner. If you cannot hold a lance without bleeding, there is no chance you could wield one while riding a horse.”

The realization that she was ill-equipped to compete unfurled over Sybil’s features. Her head fell and her throat began to hitch, like she was holding back tears. Whatever her intention, competing in the tournament had clearly been an iron encasement around her. Without it, despair pressed over shoulders so fervently she stooped.

It stole my breath and scorched my cheeks with shame. I’d been feeling blindly in my chest for the teeth marks she’d left in my heart—I hadn’t considered how fractured hers might be.

Pith, I needed that loom stone. I took a wild step toward Weasel Face, but she was already moving. She retrieved the padded shirt meant to be Sybil’s under armor, took a knife from her belt, and cut a long strip of linen from its hem. “Here,” she said, handing it out to Sybil. “You can still watch the joust from the king’s box.”

“That I might be as the cathedral and Der ewige Mond—useful to my conquerors?” Seething, Sybil threw the lance down so hatefully it cracked, then ripped the linen from Weasel Face’s hand. When she lifted her chemise, putting it between her teeth and tying the makeshift bandage around her abdomen, I finally saw it.

A stab wound, sitting beneath Sybil’s navel. The skin around it was raised, shiny and angry. Cauterized, I thought, except the wound hadn’t closed. It was weeping blood, white fragments speckled within the red. For a moment I didn’t know what I was looking at, only that my fists were clenched and my mouth hot with malice. Then I understood.

Stone.

There were tiny specks of limestone in her blood.

Sybil fastened the linen, hiding the wound away. “The melee is next.” I could not prove it, but I could swear she was staring at the loom stone around Weasel Face’s neck. “I’ll be needing a stonemason’s or blacksmith’s hammer. The one you brought is for carpentry—the balance is all wrong.”

She picked up her silken robe, balling its cuff and the number VI in her fist, then shoved it back on, her wound hidden; she was a woman in white once more.

Above us, the noise in the arena grew louder.

“Guard.” Weasel Face pointed an armored finger in my face. “Help me get her into the stands. Don’t let anyone touch her.”

We moved in a line out of the stables, Weasel Face, then Sybil, then me.

The wide corridor was nearly empty now; all the horses and riders and squires bearing weapons had moved into the lists. Only a few remained, tucked up behind a row of horses, peeking out as I stumbled past. A knight in dark armor—and a stout figure in pink robes.

Maude and the gargoyle peered at me, nodding at Weasel Face ahead, as if to say, Here we go.

My stomach churned; I was so nervous I considered puking. I faced Sybil’s back instead, blurting, “Another time, then, for that kiss.”

She said nothing. Then, just as we began to climb the arena stairs —“Fuck off, knave.”

The noise, I was prepared for. Hundreds of souls packed into the stands, with horses in the lists—it was bound to put a buzz in my ears. What I hadn’t expected was for all that clamor to go immediately silent the moment Sybil entered the arena.

We’d arrived through a narrow archway separate from the main entrance and were immediately confronted by stairs, then a walkway, then more stairs. Thousands of eyes watched us, whispers clinging like spiderwebs as we climbed.

“White, like limestone. They say when you look into them, the Omens might show you your future.”

“Yes, the other Diviners were all crushed by the rubble, apparently.

Tragic.”

“I swear it! My cousin is a servant in the castle. He said the spear hit her right in the stomach. It took an entire day to clean the floor of blood.”

“It’s the wretched sprites’ fault, attacking the wedding like that. I say the pests should be shot down on sight, no matter where they linger.”

“I thought she’d be competing in the joust.”

“I thought she’d be prettier,” barked another. “Less bodied, more delicate—”

I cracked the man so hard over the mouth he fell out of his seat.

Sybil turned, a furrow drawing between her eyes as she glanced down at me. Then Weasel Face took her by the arm, slipped a finger into the loom stone, vanished, then reappeared several yards away, sparing Sybil the steps

to climb.

The crowd gasped in awe.

I followed, huffing in my helmet, and we reached a wooden box that sat about eight feet above the arena. It was walled off and lidded with a roof, protected by a banister and more damn purple flags. There were guards there. Knights. Men and women in bright silks with jewels on their wrists and necks and ears—some even in their teeth.

In the heart of it, seated in a cushioned chair, was a young man, drinking wine from a goblet. He had golden hair and armor to match, an easy smile and stark blue eyes. When he saw Sybil, his chest swelled. He eyed her in a way that made my blood boil—like she was a wounded animal. “Not competing after all, then?” He peered at her silk robe. “At least they got the stain out.”

I knew who he was. King Benedict Castor the Third. My friend.

My killer.

“What are you standing there for?” A knight with large white teeth barked in my face. “Go be with the others. Near Dedrick.”

As if I knew who the hell that was.

I squeezed next to a line of castle guards instead, five feet behind Weasel Face and the loom stone around her neck. Meanwhile Sybil had taken her seat next to the king. A cup of something foul smelling passed under my

nose, handed from guard to guard until it reached Large Teeth, who gave it to Sybil. “Heard you’re in pain,” he said, far too close to her ear.

Sybil snatched the cup and drained it without even looking at him.

The king rose to his feet, then waved to the crowd. A great swell of noise echoed, and a slender man with thin, oily hair came to stand before him.

“An enormous success, sire.” He had silver teeth and carried a giant bowl filled with coins. Hung over his arm like an eel was a gold silken sash. “A record number of merchants in the field, and as you see—a full arena. Quite the boon for the hamlet. I’ve commissioned a heralding sash for today’s champion, just as you requested.”

“Should I save time and put it on now?” The king lifted the bowl of gold from his hands and took a coin off the top. “It’s brilliant, Ormsby. Truly.

This purse will be yours when I win.” He tossed the coin at the man with all the grace of a butcher flinging a piece of animal fat to the floor.

It was going to be a pleasure killing this asshole.

The man—Ormsby—bent to pick up the coin. When he did, the king put a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to his knees. “But never forget, it is not you who brings greatness to the hamlets, but me, my Diviner, and my stone objects.”

The king released him. Benedict placed the bowl of gold on his cushioned chair, then reached for a pouch on his belt and withdrew a different coin, limestone and oblong. He lifted it, winked at his fellow knights, tossed the coin—vanished.

A moment later he reappeared in the heart of the arena to rapturous applause. The king raised both hands in beckoning. “What joy is mine to compete in my home hamlet, the best hamlet, Coulson Faire.”

The clamor was deafening.

On the floor of the arena, grass had been unrooted and two jousting lanes drawn, separated by a long wooden banister. The participants waited in the lists with their horses. Some were knights, others civilians in armor or leathers. One was a boy who wore no armor or mail or leather, just a flaxen shirt and loose trousers.

I looked for Maude. Took a creeping step toward Weasel Face’s back.

King Benedict Castor was brought a helmet and a horse, and he mounted with ease. When a knight handed him his lance, the king held it with a kind of assurance that only comes with competence; the boy knew what he was

doing, which pissed me off. Drums beat, applause echoed. Another jouster took the lane opposite the king, and a purple flag waved. The jousters raced toward each other, the knell of pounding hooves joining the drums. Lances were raised, and—crash!

The king struck his opponent on the shoulder. The man jerked back in his saddle and tumbled off his horse. When the king withdrew his helmet and accepted his raucous applause, his smile glistened in the light.

Meanwhile, I was inching my way closer and closer to Weasel Face, her neck and the loom stone upon it barely an arm’s length away.

Benji won another round. Then another—I’d bet good money his opponents weren’t bloody trying. His fourth opponent was the boy in the flaxen shirt I’d seen earlier, who looked no older than the king himself. He had no gold or silver in his teeth but gaps where several had fallen out.

“All the money in the world for a chance to have a Divination!” he called, waving at Sybil in the king’s box.

The king flicked his wrist, and the boy mounted his horse. Benji wore full armor, and so did his warhorse. He hefted his lance with ease, gripped it firmly, levied it like a threat. But his opponent was thin. He’d been forged by breads and coarse grains, not the red meat the nobility consumed; the lance likely outweighed him. Still, his fervor was enough that he made it onto his horse and managed to lift his lance.

The drum beat, and the purple flag waved. The king burst forth at a canter, and the boy’s horse managed an unsteady trot. Jostling in his saddle, the boy’s smile faded. He fought to keep his balance. When he looked up and saw his opponent hurtling toward him, the boy’s eyes widened. He cried out. Dropped his lance.

When the king reached him, it was not the crash of wood upon armor, but the crack of bone, shattering. The whoosh of air, fleeing lungs.

The thud of a body, hitting the ground.

The crowd rose from their seats and cheered. Everyone watched the king ride his horse in a victory lap around the arena. But my gaze was upon the boy.

He’d been knocked from his horse and was now on the ground, crumpled and struggling to breathe. His eyes were wide and unblinking, reflecting gray skies and nothing else. I knew, even from a distance, that he’d been mortally wounded.

It hurt to swallow.

“Like a little sprite in the glen,” Sybil murmured to no one.

“Anyone might compete in the tournament,” said Large Teeth. “But it’s not for everyone, is it? Knights are better trained, better fed, better educated. Common nobodies could never win these events, but it gives them hope, dreaming that they might.”

Sybil’s voice was a lifeless rasp. “And so even hope becomes an illusion in the Stonewater Kingdom.”

Whether by skill or design, the king never lost a match. For every round of applause or crash of a lance upon armor, I crept closer to the loom stone.

By now I could see the individual rings of the silver chain that held it around Weasel Face’s neck. Fingers shaking, I reached out— She leaned forward, forcing me to lock my fingers in a fist and shove them back against my side. “Who’s that?” she asked the other knights.

“No idea,” said Large Teeth.

Another jouster entered the arena, leading a pale horse. Not one of the knights—they all wore purple sashes over their breastplate. This one wore dark, russeted armor and bore no weapon or sheath on her belt, just an empty loop along her right hip where an axe might sit. When she mounted her horse, turning the animal up and down her lane, she made no acknowledgment of the clamoring crowd or the knights in the lists. Her gaze was lifted upward, steadfast and unflagging, upon the king’s box.

There was no life I could wake to where Maude Bauer wouldn’t be the most formidable creature in it.

The king rode to the opposite lane, then lifted his lance to salute Maude.

She gave no return salute—she merely leaned down, muttered something to her horse, tucked her lance, and took her place.

I sucked in a breath.

The purple flag waved.

The horses rushed, the riders leaning forward, and crash—both lances shattered. The crowd roared. Maude had kept her seat, and so had the king, though there was a considerable dent in his right rerebrace.

Maude returned to her starting line and took up a fresh lance, still and stoic upon her horse. Slowly, as if stretching, she lifted her left arm.

Brought it to her helmet. Tapped three times.

The signal. Do you have it?

I braced myself against the wall, lifted my own hand, and tapped my helmet once. No.

“Hamelin, Samuel.” Another knight was running up the arena stairs into the king’s box. Weasel Face turned to face him, slipping once more away from my grasp. “There’s been a disturbance. Apparently—”

“Shut up, Dedrick!” Large Teeth put up his hand. “The king is about to win the joust.”

When the purple flag waved once more, Maude spurred her horse, lance steady as the animal rushed forward. The drum of hoofbeats pounded in my chest. I was like everyone else—held captive by the arena.

Boom!

Maude’s lance caught the king along his shoulder, its tip breaking against his pauldron. The king flew back, his own lance lifting like a tower, then falling with him. The uproar was catastrophic—but then Maude’s horse jerked. She cantered past the end of lane, her lance still lifted. There was no opponent before her now save the arena’s wooden stands.

And the king’s box therein.

Maude’s lance shattered along the banister, the collision rattling wood and armor, sending half the stands off their feet. I fell to my hands and knees, and Sybil toppled from her seat. The king’s chair upended, his bowl of gold spilling, coins raining into the stands, folk of Coulson Faire jumping

and diving to catch a handful.

The knights shouted. “Get the king!”

The audience screamed. “Get the coin!”

Ankles and elbows tangled; a dozen guards had fallen in the same corner of the king’s box. A knee caught my temple, knocking me senseless. Weasel Face had fallen like the rest of us and was a kicking horse, throwing her weight around, trying to get to her feet. And my body knew without being told that there was no better moment. I reached out with unearthly speed.

Clutched the silver chain around her neck with both hands. Yanked so hard it split my skin.

The chain shattered. Down went the loom stone, clattering onto the floor near my knees.

Weasel Face must had known the weight of it—must have felt the imbalance—because the moment it fell her mouth was open, her beady eyes going wide. She put a hand to her neck, then turned, searching the ground

frantically. “You!” she barked, turning to me. “That loom stone at your knee —give it here!”

Thief that I was, I reached beneath my left leg. Clutched the loom stone.

Held it out to her. She snatched it from my hand.

But not before I’d managed to slip it, rough side down, onto my bare finger.

I could see Sybil in my periphery, her silver hair a beacon. But then a bright white light bloomed behind my eyes, eclipsing the arena and everyone in it. The floor dropped from beneath me and I fell, tumbling down into the void of my mind. Flailing, falling— Into memory.

OceanofPDF.com