The Royal Tournament

by Richard H. Stephens

  Javen flinched, but before he could do anything, two men took hold of his arms, violently throwing him to the ground.

  Javen braced his arms on the dirt floor in an effort to regain his feet, but the smaller of the two men who had thrown him down, kicked his left arm out, causing him to fall onto his side.

  Javen instinctively flipped onto his back, crab-walking away from the man to create space, but the larger man matched his progress and dug a boot into his shoulder.

  “I warned ye, boy. ‘Tis nothin’ doin’ with ye. Best ya bugger off ‘n forget it. I aint tellin’ ye agin.”

  Javen refrained from getting up. Propped on his elbows, he asked, “What did he do to you?”

  “Not yer concern, laddie. Best ya be leavin’ it alone. Get it?”

  “Does it take seven of you to lay a beating on one man?”

  The men who had been standing by the tree took an interest in the new commotion and made their way over. From inside the barn, the man straddling Alcyonne said, “Not that it’s any concern of yours, but this darky here tried to stole our stuff whilst we made merry in town. Now ‘e’s getting justice.”

  “No, you must be mistaken. Alcyonne wouldn’t steal anything.” Javen searched for a sympathetic face. “You have the wrong man.”

  Another man, the oldest and most sincere looking of the bunch, nodded sympathetically. “Aye lad. ‘Tis truly shameful. ‘e tried to make off with our jousting tackle, ‘e did.”

  Javen perceived Alcyonne trying to shake his head in denial, but the beaten man lacked the strength to muster more than a tremble.

  “No way. He has no need of your equipment. He doesn’t use any.”

  “Humph. I begs t’ differ. Seems ‘e gone an’ broked all his lances, an’ needs new ones if’n ‘e’s to continue.”

  “No. He wouldn’t—”

  “How ye know what darky’s think? Ye his caretaker? I been told he ‘as not a one,” the man on Alcyonne spat. “Ask these good folk here. They caught him trying to slink into the night with our lord’s lances, they did. ‘Tis probably matched with ‘im in the morn an’ afeared of ‘im.”

  Javen didn’t want to believe the man, but the onlookers nodded their agreement. Javen was crestfallen.

  Gaining his feet without opposition, Javen shook his head in disbelief. He looked at Alcyonne.

  A tear escaped one of the dark man’s quickly swelling eyes.

  Javen looked back at the men in the courtyard around the old Greene barn. To a man they pursed their lips, as if they, too, were sorry Javen had to find out about his friend this way. Some of the men looked away.

  A voice in the crowd said acidly, “What’s a matter, boy? Ya inta layin’ wit’ darkies now, are ye?”

  Javen couldn’t see who spoke, but the comment was met by laughter.

  Javen took a last look at Alcyonne’s battered visage. Sometimes justice could be severe.

  He turned from the men before him and walked away, his feet scraping the hard dirt ground. With another shake of his head, he glanced back. The men he had talked with had rejoined their brethren in the barn. He couldn’t see Alcyonne anymore. The man’s battered form lay somewhere beneath the large man in the cherry-red surcoat.

  Beneath the tree by the wall, he thought the lump looked like Alcyonne’s horse upon the ground. It was too dark to tell if it was alive or not.

  Javen trudged back toward the tented city, the smells and noises rising ahead of him. Laughter was everywhere. The darkness receded behind the flickering light of hundreds of cook fires. Men and women danced all about in various states of dress. People he had never seen before put their arms around his slumped shoulders and attempted to direct him toward their individual camps, offering him tankards of sloshing mead. Javen shrugged off the advances with a forced smile and a dejected, “No thank you.”

  He stumbled along, trying to rid his mind of Alcyonne. What a fool he was to care about the wellbeing of a man he didn’t know, a man who had only been in Zephyr but for a few days. He sighed. Perhaps the stories of black men were true after all. He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t been warned.

  Still, something nagged at him. His pa hadn’t seemed to agree with those racist sentiments, but thinking on it in hindsight, his father would go along with Javen’s beliefs because that’s what fathers did.

  He wondered what kind of person could be so noble one moment, and so rotten the next? Alcyonne had been so jovial at the baron’s manner. Twice. His demeanour full of warmth and happiness. And the events on the jousting pitch? Not that he had partaken in many tournaments during his short life, but never had he witnessed anyone do what Alcyonne had tried to do for his beaten adversary. And then to be caught stealing his next competitor’s lances? Shameful. The trickster had pulled the wool over so many eyes.

  “Milford. Javen! Javen Milford!”

  A fist shot out of the crowd, grabbing Javen by the shoulder.

  “Javen. Wake up.”

  Captain Korn’s inebriated mien startled him out of the dark place he had fallen into.

  “Uh, oh, captain. Sorry, I, uh, wasn’t watching where I was going.” He tried to pull away and keep walking. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to retrieve Sunseeker from the gatehouse and go home.

  Korn’s grip was iron.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, young man. Why the long face. You look like you lost your dog.”

  Javen gave him a tight-lipped grimace.

  “Ah, no luck with the women, eh?” He gave Javen a playful push.

  “Uh, yes sir. That’s it.” Javen shrugged free and attempted to walk around the captain.

  “Not so fast, Milford. Something’s bothering my best jouster, and I mean to find out what. Can’t have you moping along the tilting rail, you’ll more ‘n likely get your head knocked off. Kinda like you almost did with that knight this morning, eh? How would I explain that to dear old Jebadiah?” He smiled, trying to get Javen to do likewise. “Why he’d more ‘n like take my head off, that’s what he’d do, and no mistake.”

  The captain wrapped an arm around Javen’s broad back and with difficulty pulled the boy close so he could whisper in his ear, “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve grown quite fond of my head.”

  If Javen even heard the jest, he didn’t give it another thought. “It’s nothing really, sir. It’s just…”

  “Just what?”

  “It’s Alcyonne, sir.”

  “Alcyonne?” The tipsy captain thought. “Ah, yes, Alcyonne. What? You couldn’t find him? Couldn’t find the barn? What?”

  “Oh no, I found him alright. He was getting his teeth knocked out.”

  Korn’s smile dropped. He tried to focus a little more seriously. “Does he need help?”

  “I’d say,” Javen sighed.

  Korn looked poised to take up Alcyonne’s plight, but Javen’s next words stilled him.

  “Apparently they caught him stealing his competitor’s gear.”

  Korn frowned. “His competitor? What competitor?”

  “Oh, I dunno. The stuff belonged to whomever he’s supposed to be jousting on the morrow.” Javen sighed. “He broke all the lances he brought with him, so...” He shrugged. “I guess you never truly know someone, eh?”

  The captain regarded Javen with concern, but his attempt at remaining serious with the amount of spirits he had in his system was lost to him. He slapped Javen on the back. “Tough break, kid. ‘Tis too bad, really. Strangely enough, I was developing a soft spot for the lad,” Korn slurred as he turned to walk away. As an afterthought he added, “Not sure how he knew who his opponent would be, though. The king won’t be drawing the lists until the midday feast following the melee round.”

  With that said, the captain disappeared into the festivity of the night.

  Javen watched his retreat. When he could no longer differentiate the captain from the multit
ude of people between them, he resumed his course toward the southern gatehouse. Doing his best to avoid the amiable drunkards staggering and swaying everywhere, he pondered the captain’s last words. Why would the men in the cherry-red surcoats…?

  Cherry-red surcoats! The men at the old Greene barn were all clad in the same colour livery worn by that rude knight Alcyonne had faced earlier in the day. The same colours worn by the knight who broke his back upon the tilting rail; most likely injured beyond recovery.

  Of course. Ember Breath colours. Those men were the same vile retainers who attended the contemptible knight on the field. The very same men who had scorned Alcyonne’s attempt at aid following the collision. The man with the well-kempt goatee!

  According to Captain Korn, Alcyonne would have no way of knowing who he faced the next day. Even if he did, it certainly wouldn’t be the knight from Ember Breath. That knight was not only beaten, he was probably dead.

  Javen’s eyes grew wide. They weren’t exacting justice upon a man who stole from them. They were exacting retribution upon a kind, caring man who, in all probability, even though they treated him like horseshit, had gone in search of the injured knight to see if he was okay.

  Javen stopped dead in his tracks. His blood ran cold. He had left his friend to die.

  Frantically looking around, he realized with a sinking feeling, there was no way he was going to be able to relocate Captain Korn in time to help. He scanned the crowd anyway, as he began to half walk, half jog back toward the storehouse district, hoping to see someone he knew. Never had he seen so many foreign faces.

  He was at a loss as to what he should do. Alcyonne’s need was dire. Without another thought he started running through the jubilant masses, pushing people out of his way, absently apologizing as he did so. His shoving wasn’t given a second thought by most. A few drunken knights attempted to give chase after being knocked aside, but Javen lost them in the crowd.

  Jostling his way through the crowd, he tried to put the tarpaulin city festivities behind him. Preoccupied with his need to get to Alcyonne, he no longer heard the laughter and singing around him, or the loud talking of people about the various campfires. Or the voice of a friend who called out to him as he bolted past.

  Within minutes that felt like hours, he left behind the tumult of the main encampment. The streets became quieter, colder, darker. The noise and exotic scents were replaced by his laboured breathing and the damp smell of dew settling upon the ground.

  The long shadows on the road shortened as he passed the abandoned gristmill.

  The small group of men who gathered to watch had grown in number; everyone jostling for space inside the old Greene barn, their attention riveted upon the fight inside.

  Javen swallowed heavily. He would receive no help there. Most of them were clad in cherry-red apparel.

  He approached the side of the barn, wondering how in the world he was going to win Alcyonne free, but the sound of skin smacking skin, and the feeble groan of despair that followed, removed any thought of subtlety.

  Javen emitted an angry growl, adrenaline sloughing aside his common sense. He threw himself into the backs of the onlookers.

  The startled group parted, caught unaware. They grabbed at him, but weren’t quick enough.

  The large man straddling Alcyonne turned his head in time to see Javen’s headlong charge.

  Javen threw his entire body weight into the man’s shoulder, wrapping him in outstretched arms and carrying the man with the well-kempt goatee from Alcyonne’s limp form. They rolled in a heap upon the dirt floor, a cloud of dust rising in their wake.

  The largest spectator took a spot atop Alcyonne ensuring the Aldebaranite didn’t escape, but Alcyonne was too far gone to resist.

  The older man who had berated Javen earlier, stepped between the crowd and the two men fighting, keeping the others from intervening. A wicked sneer parted his lips as he pointed to the man with the well-trimmed goatee grappling with Javen. “No one interferes. He lives for this.”

  It soon became apparent Javen’s farmer’s strength and surprise attack wouldn’t be enough to contain the brute beneath him. Javen wasn’t a brawler. The man squirming beneath him was.

  The man with the goatee worked his way from beneath and twisted on top of Javen. He started delivering bone crunching punches to Javen’s ribs, and then to his face.

  Javen tried to block the brunt of the blows, but with the force that they were delivered, his efforts did little to mitigate their impact.

  Thankfully, the man’s assault ceased as he jumped to his feet and studied Javen’s dirty, bloodied face. He spat. The rank spittle smacked upon the right shoulder of Javen’s ripped tunic.

  “Don’t…ever...jump me…again,” The man said between heavy breaths. “I oughtta…whoa!”

  Javen kicked out his legs, catching the man around the ankles. With a quick twist, he pulled the man to the ground, and delivered a healthy beating of his own upon the back and side of the cowering man’s head.

  The toe of a riding boot cracked Javen beneath the chin, putting a quick end to the fight.

  A white light went off inside Javen’s head as the boot lifted him clear of the large man. Blackness ensued before he hit the ground.

  How long Javen remained unconscious, he didn’t know. It couldn’t have been long. From his new vantage point, pinned against the riverside wall of the old Greene barn by both arms—each arm held by two sneering, foul smelling men in cherry-red livery—he could vaguely make out the blurred image of his assailant dusting himself off.

  Javen smiled weakly. Blood leaked from the large thug’s right ear, and judging by the look of his nose, both eyes of the man with the well-trimmed goatee would be fused shut before the sun rose again.

  Javen’s head lolled back and forth, his chin resting upon his chest, as he tried to watch the large man sneering back at him, through his own swelling eyes. Bloody spit drooled from his mouth. He could only imagine what was to come next. It wasn’t going to be good, but he felt gratified he had taken the attention of the Ember Breath contingent away from Alcyonne, if only for a while. The kindly, good hearted man from Aldebaran hadn’t deserved this.

  The large man’s glare promised death, his puffy eyes never leaving Javen’s. He cocked his head to both sides, shaking out the large muscles in his shoulders. With a sardonic grin, he approached the foolish farm boy held against the barn’s weathered planks. He delivered the first blow to Javen’s midsection with such force that Javen’s breath left him as his feet lifted off the ground. Even the men holding him cringed and looked away.

  Through watery, pain laced eyes, Javen tried to focus upon the man reloading his right fist. This one would come for his face, he knew. He also knew he wasn’t likely to survive it.

  The man drew back, hopping upon his toes in preparation, rocking back to gather momentum before delivering the death punch.

  A blood curdling battle cry filled the air as the man with the well-trimmed goatee left his feet, all his weight thrown behind his fist.

  Only the splintering barn boards gave him pause as his head impacted with fatal force mere inches away from Javen’s. He hadn’t even had time to cry out, nor had he seen who had pulverized him from behind like a battering ram.

  The scene in the barn erupted into pandemonium. Initially, all the men in cherry-red livery charged the man responsible for their cohort’s death, but in the next heartbeat, they were turning, and fleeing for their lives.

  The huge frame of Helvius Pyxis, long, greasy hair flying about his head, destroyed everyone within arm’s reach. Men were knocked senseless by a single blow of his war hammer fists. Others were tossed through the air, impacting with the shaking walls and roof beams of the old Greene barn. The men holding Javen slowly, and ever so gently, lowered him to the ground, palms facing outward in submission. Their eyes were round with terror. Their pants wet with fear.

  Soon a
ll activity in the barn stopped. Dust hung in the air. Moans and whimpers from the few surviving Ember Breath men disturbed the eerie silence that settled upon the killing ground.

  Javen’s breath returned to him painfully. He was alive, although his vision dimmed. Outside the barn he discerned a few of the remaining Ember Breath contingent cowering in a small knot. He heard Captain Korn taking control of the scene, barking orders to unseen militiamen.

  Directly before him, Helvius’ massive form, hunched upon his knees, cradled Alcyonne’s damaged head within his large, battered hands. The colossus gently wiped the blood away from the dark man’s eyes, his own eyes watering at the damage that had been inflicted upon his friend.

  Javen couldn’t tell whether Alcyonne still lived, and if so, for how much longer. He tried to adjust himself into a more comfortable sitting position to see better, but found he couldn’t. Stabbing pain lanced through his body. He wanted to cry out, but he lacked the strength. His vision dimmed further, his thinking hazier. He coughed up a gob of blood that slid slowly down his chin. Faintly, ever so faintly, he heard two beautiful words.

  “Yaw bre.”

  Javen managed a weak smile before darkness claimed him.

  Chapter 7-Emperor of the Field

  Sunshine glistened along the freshly polished, oak tilting rail. An over-capacity crowd gathered to watch the final competition of the Royal Tournament: the championship joust. Amongst the many dignitaries occupying the royal viewing box, located in the centre of the east stand, two people stood out above all others. All eyes watched them. All mouths spoke of them. The heavily bandaged black man, and his equally bound, white companion. Of all the competitors in the tournament, the prince included, nobody elicited more gossip than the mysterious man from Aldebaran.

  Javen and Alcyonne were given the honour of watching the final joust beside Jarr-nash Sylvan Jordic, the king’s champion. Alcyonne sat on Jarr-nash’s right with Javen beside him. The baron’s men had replaced the original seats with wide, padded armchairs fetched from his personal study. Behind them sat the imposing Helvius Pyxis, two chairs wide, watching over them.