In the Eye of Heaven

by David Keck

  The line surged into motion with the blare of trumpets.

  THE MELEE WAS a wild and furious thing. After the long night under the silver moon, the climbing Eye of Heaven set every streaming color ablaze.

  For hours, Durand fought to stay with Lamoric's conroi and not to get himself cut from the group and taken. There were collisions and screams and pitched battles as conrois clashed. Men fell and ran. In the confusion, blows clattered in from wild angles. Men bobbed in and out. As the bright Eye climbed, Durand took a lance against his shield and uncounted slapping blows over mailed limbs. As far as he knew, no blow of his own had so much as bruised another man.

  In the day's third hour, a lance jabbed big Ouen from his horse, but Lamoric and Berchard together swooped down. In an instant, the giant knight was flying over the field, suspended between two horses with his feet churning the air.

  Durand and the whole conroi swept in to cover their retreat from the lists. The big man hit the ground beyond the palings, tumbling from the hands that had hoisted him out of harm's way, and laughing as he rolled to a halt among a crowd of startled shield-bearers.

  It was while Ouen tumbled that things went wrong. Coensar was howling an order. 'To me, to me! Reform! Reform!" From the churning, wheeling chaos of the melee, another conroi had broken loose. In racing for the edge of the lists, Lamoric's men were strung out across two-dozen paces with the slowest horses and poorest riders straggling and exposed. Enemies leapt to seize the advantage.

  Durand, on his stolid cob, barely had time to spin as men and horses sleeted through the fragmented lines all around him. One grinning villain picked him out, rushing forward behind the long blade of a lance. The attacking point howled up Durand's shield, as his own lance shot the gap between his attacker's horse and bridle, wrenching ten feet of spinning lance from Durand's fist

  Lamoric's conroi flexed, twisting like a pit bear—blades, armor, and lances lashing to drive off any new attacker.

  Suddenly safe, Durand shook a stung hand. His lance was a sharp angle in the mud, ashwood snapped like a reed. He felt blood slick in his ear. With the rest of the conroi bristling, there was room for Durand to slip out, pull himself together, and collect another weapon.

  The quickest route took him past the reviewing stand, but, as he slipped into its shadow, a knight in red dragons spotted him. The man's gilded helm and its tall dragon crest twitched Durand's way. Though the whoreson must have seen that Durand was unarmed, the Dragon jammed his spurs home, his warhorse's trapper rising in a red storm. The pennon of the Dragon's lance lashed like flame. "Hells," snarled Durand.

  In the instant that Durand understood that he must run, voices gasped behind him. Several of the young women were standing now, many with their hands at their faces. He saw wide eyes and excited grins. If she was here, his Stream Maid was among them. He could not run.

  He spurred the cob down the Dragon's throat. There was no time. He got one gulp of air, then Dragon struck, lance glancing from Durand's shield—slamming Durand over the back of his saddle. But Durand swung: the slapping overhand blow caught the Dragon's helm—staving it in with the force of charging horses alone. The dragon crest flew on, spinning.

  There was a shriek among the women as the leather crest flopped down among them.

  The Dragon himself crashed from his saddle. As the downed man's mount flounced to a halt, Durand hauled himself back into his seat and turned to the stand. The maids were smiling and standing and staring. His Stream Maid was there, in shadow. The Lady of the Bower flashed her teeth. The Dragon struggled on the ground, like an insect, half-crushed. Durand felt he should do something. He should get help. Or he should take the bastard prisoner.

  The heralds winded their arcane horns: a long hollow note that skirled above the field.

  Durand twisted. The din of blades ebbed away.

  The Lady stood as placidly as she had been when she started the whole event. In the lists behind Durand, only a few straggling clatters continued to ensure him that it was not sorcery that had stilled them all.

  Every streaked and muddy soldier on the field looked to the Lady of the Bower and her handmaids. Durand felt a fool, caught by mistake on the same stage before all the others. With a nod to the Lady, he gave ground, bullying his carthorse backward, as the gray-bearded herald strode out in front of the stand.

  The man bowed stiffly to the crowd.

  "You have each acquitted yourself well this morning, and my Lady thanks you for your spirited participation. The Eye of Heaven has reached its zenith. The general melee is at an end. When every man has sung Noontide Lauds, the tournament will continue; this time to be fought by chosen men alone. The Lady's selections will be delivered to each war band. Let each righting man be ready for the call." The man paused. "When next the horns sound, it will be the seventh hour."

  As the old herald departed with his mistress for the castle, Durand closed his eyes and breathed deep, careful breaths. It was over.

  For a time only men-at-arms and villagers remained.

  After a few awkward heartbeats, the fighting men turned from the lists, moving without orders toward the pavilions. Someone collected the battered Dragon.

  One-eyed Berchard swung in beside Durand's cob.

  "Durand! Bravely done." He smiled. "And you've found hidden virtues in that old cob horse." He extended a wineskin to Durand. "May you both sire great lines!"

  Durand took it, surprised that any of Lamoric's men would speak with him. "I thought the thing would be scared out of its wits."

  'Too daft to notice, more like. And I'm not sure he isn't blind," Berchard said. He took back the skin. "You did well. Taught a couple of them, I reckon. That last one anyway." He grimaced. "He'll think twice next time he sees a rough country lout on a plow horse." Then he offered the skin once more.

  Durand took another swig from the bottle and a good breath of air.

  "He deserved worse," said Berchard.

  Glancing around, the old campaigner leaned close. "And, as for me, I talk to whomever I like." The man leaned back and nodded. "For what it's worth.

  "Here's your mate," he added, with a glance toward the edge of the field.

  Heremund took the reins of the plow horse as Durand climbed down, his legs like sacks of sand.

  "You're alive," the skald laughed. "What a brawl that was. Like no melee these eyes have seen. Half these fools are lucky they didn't kill themselves, let alone anyone else. There were horses bounding off like hares, every which way. Men on backward. Upside down. Boys on pigs have more grace."

  They trudged toward Lamoric's tents, Durand eyeing his future. It was Blood Moon in the wide world beyond Hesperand, and winter was in the wind. He would be making his own way once more.

  Heremund produced a loaf of bread. "Don't worry. I stole it from Guthred," he explained. "Nothing baked or grown in Hesperand."

  There were bruised men sprawled everywhere, most too tired or battered to even think about speaking. Heremund winced at the worst of them. "Looks like a wagon wreck on market day."

  They found a dry spot in the grass and sat down. The earth felt like earth. The Eye of Heaven was as warm as always. Slipping his arm from the straps of his shield, Durand tore a chunk from the loaf with his teeth—a few loose. His right hand was stiff and swollen.

  Heremund smiled around a long sip of claret. "I might have missed your ugly face, you know."

  "You saw that scrape with the Dragon, then?" Durand said.

  Heremund handed him the wineskin. "He should never have come for you with that lance."

  Durand didn't argue.

  "Dragon's a baron," said Heremund, "I think. I can't remember which. Hardly fair, and what's he gain besting a foe like you?"

  Durand smiled. "Thank you, I'm sure."

  "Your gear is nothing he'd want as a prize, and you weren't fairly armed. He made a fool of himself losing. No money. No honor. Little risk, no reward. I wonder what the rules would be if you'd have caught him? He'd have to yie
ld to a knight."

  "I thought I was going to end up skewered."

  Heremund laughed. "Aye. Whack! A bolt through a pigeon, right in front of our lovely hostess. I'm beginning to think I should train you for a skald like me. I don't even lance boils."

  Durand raked his helmet off with the bad hand, the leather webbing peeling away from a paste of brown blood.

  Heremund winced, but, looking up, spotted something over Durand's shoulder. Durand turned to find eyes on him. Toward

  Lamoric's pavilion, dour Guthred was staring. Lamoric's helm faced their way as well. Heremund touched his shoulder.

  "I suppose though," he said, "you really ought to seek out the uneven battle."

  "You want me skewered?" Durand said.

  Heremund's eyes narrowed, considering the proposition. "No, I imagine you'd be a bit tough for my teeth. Though I suppose with the kind of malleting you took today, you're likely halfway tender by now."

  Durand allowed himself a smile. There were a hundred bruises waiting for him, he was sure.

  Heremund jabbed a stubby finger toward Durand. "Everyone likes the dashing hero who wins despite overwhelming opposition. Yes, overwhelming opposition's the only way. You'll have to keep an eye out."

  "I'll need a better helm," Durand said.

  "Skill."

  "Aye, and a coat of plates, while I'm at it." Durand laughed, swallowing another tart mouthful of wine.

  Someone whooped toward Lamoric's camp.

  "What's this now?" said Heremund.

  Durand thought he heard his name, and stood to find Berchard marching toward him.

  "Here! Durand! The Green Lady. She sent this along for you." He slapped a hard yellow lump into Durand's torn right hand. He caught a whiff of lye. Durand didn't understand.

  "What is it?"

  "They've announced the chosen men, and, God save us, you're one. We'll have to clean you up a bit."

  In different ways, every man in the conroi looked as astounded as Durand—all but Sir Coensar, who wore an expression that might have been amusement. The captain had a scroll of cream vellum in his hand.

  Coensar lifted the scroll and quietly read: "From the company of the Knight in Red are selected the Knight in Red himself, Sir Coensar his captain, and Durand of the Col."

  Berchard grinned. "Well done, lad," he said, taking the soap back and giving the hand a good pump. "My horse is yours, if you need it."

  15. On the Field of Bower Mead

  By Agryn's dial, the seventh hour was almost upon them. The strap on Durand's helmet was tight enough to crack his teeth. He swallowed against the knot. The green and yellow shield of his family was torn in a dozen places. Berchard's horse, a sooty brown, tossed its head fit to break its neck. Durand snugged his grip on the reins.

  There were thirty chosen men. All the fighting men north and south had been reduced to two tight conrois. Peasants had uprooted the palings and driven them into the turf much closer to the reviewing stand, staking out an area fifty paces on a side. There would be no room to breathe out there.

  Durand waited in a line with the north fifteen. He was the only man on either side whose horse wore no trapper—and the only man whose face was bare.

  "When it starts, stick close," hissed Coensar. Lamoric, as Knight in Red, sat beyond the captain.

  Durand nodded once, sharply. With Lamoric at risk, the captain wasn't pleased that a novice had stolen an experienced man's place.

  Opposite their conroi were fifteen visored knights; helms, and shields, and trappers all matched. "I'm the saltire cross. Take the green." There was, indeed, a man in gold and green opposite him. Durand slipped his lance higher in his hand, accidentally provoking the blue knight to do the same, raising his lance in a mocking salute. He could feel the garter below his knee binding.

  The Lady of the Bower stood. In one delicate hand, she held a bit of green silk. Durand glanced for the champing conroi opposite. He saw Coensar's "saltire"—a white cross on sable: Cassonel of Damaryn. His black helm turned to the stands.

  The Lady raised her arm. Durand locked his teeth and tore his eyes away as the green fabric fell.

  The avalanche of their hooves buried the call of horns. The line charged as though every knight had leapt from a cliff. Durand aimed for the green and yellow shield that bobbed toward him but, at the last, the head of his lance slipped over the rim. Green's point struck Durand's three stags hard enough that Durand nearly lost his shield.

  Reining in as the thunder passed, Durand shot a glance at Coensar.

  —And saw the captain's horse galloping riderless, Coensar himself still tumbling.

  While Coensar staggered to his feet some twenty or thirty paces from help, the Baron of Damaryn drew Termagant and set his spurs.

  Durand pitched his mount into a headlong gallop as the whole rumbling charge of Cassonel's sword and armor and barding flashed down to skewer the captain's heart.

  There was just a chance: Durand hoisted his lance overhand and stabbed into the blur of sable and silver like lightning from the empty air. The lance splintered as he flashed by.

  He heaved the brown into a savage turn to find Cassonel's warhorse lolloping away, and the Baron of Damaryn himself rolling across the turf.

  Durand pulled up where Coensar swayed. The man was blinking. Keening dragged in the grass. He was still on his guard or trying—unsure if Cassonel was alive or dead.

  Durand ripped his own sword from its scabbard, but the Baron of Damaryn lay sprawled in the skirts of his surcoat. He struggled to get his hands underneath him, tried to shove himself upright. He couldn't.

  Now, Lamoric—the Knight in Red—joined Durand, putting himself between the captain and anyone who might think to pick off a stricken man. Cassonel was still on his face.

  "That was well done," said Lamoric. Riders from Cassonel's retinue were swarming out. If they chose to fight, there were too many. But they leapt down around their leader, ducking low like dogs around a corpse. For a disjointed moment, Durand thought they were sniffing and picking at his clothes. Soon, though, they gathered their master up, and carried him from the lists. There were no shouted challenges or threats of revenge.

  Lamoric was watching Cassonel. "He's finished for today."

  Coensar laughed from the ground. "And I've missed my chance."

  And Durand realized. "I'm sorry," he said. "You might have taken him. I shouldn't have."

  Coensar's eyes darted to Durand, beads of lead in a face gray as wax.

  Then Lamoric's men surrounded them. Guthred pulled Coensar away. Berchard took the bridle of his own horse. "No one's fault It was no one's."

  The others gathered Coensar up and carried him off to safety, Berchard nodding up at Durand. "Watch His Lordship, Durand. There's no one else."

  The next charge of horsemen began.

  HE FOUGHT IN the hope that Coensar would clear his head and rejoin them. They took no prizes. They won no duels. Though Lamoric hissed and snarled, Durand guarded him closely, riding hard to stick by allied conrois and refusing to let any screaming knight goad them into a fight they could not win. Durand watched and rode, teeth bare and eyes wide, cutting like a shepherd's dog between Lamoric and harm.

  With no time for any goal but survival, Durand scarcely noticed that his shielding tactics won his master the advantage. While they ducked and dodged, other conrois tore at one another. Puffed-up thugs hared off at every insult; knights dueled like alley bravos. Soon, there wasn't a single three-man conroi left in the field. Every other group had lost at least one rider, and the desperate air of men hard-pressed was on them all. It was then that Lamoric took charge.

  "Curse you, Durand, I'm my father's son, not his daughter, and that's the last I can stand of hiding. Get out of my way, and we'll take a few prisoners before this cursed melee's done." With a stiff gesture of his sword, he broke away. Durand charged after. The young lord, with Durand's help, forced a knight in yellow to surrender, then turned toward a pair of horsemen. Durand recog
nized one as the knight who had nearly unhorsed him at the beginning of the afternoon's combat. His shield was checked in gold and green: Durand's own colors.

  Just as Durand set his spurs, the herald's horns moaned out. Durand's borrowed warhorse fell out of its gallop.

  Sir Gold and Green took his helm in his hands and lifted. Durand was startled to see the rusty hair of his acquaintance Cerlac. He waved an exhausted salute, and Cerlac grinned back.

  But the Lady was standing, her face the model of playful indignation, and, climbing down into the lists before her, came the graybeard herald.

  "Her Ladyship has no interest in watching men tear one another to pieces in mismatched battles. Let each man-at-arms who remains within the lists prepare himself for the deciding contest of the day's fighting. You will fight singly. One man against another until there is victory."

  Now THE FIELD was narrow and lined deep with spectators. At one end, Durand stood in a shadowed knot of nine horsemen, wishing he could see past the iron mask of Lamoric's helm. Near a hundred knights made up the first rank of onlookers, cheek by jowl, silent, and bloodied.

  Beyond them, the peasants of Bower Mead had closed upon the field, standing like a solemn host of specters. Grimy faces, homespun garb: hairy wool and nettle. They numbered more than a hundred.

  The sound of the place had changed. Someone sniffed a running nose. Tack on horses at the far end might have been pennies rattling in Durand's hand.

  It was here they would have to fight.

  The graybeard herald, his face like a carved icon, stepped into the narrow lists. Down the long ground, Durand could see another knot of horsemen.

  The man spoke now, his voice pitch low: "Eighteen of you remained within the lists when the horns were winded. Nine," he said, "and nine. Now, you must now decide who will enter next."

  The herald looked back to his Lady, who nodded once very slowly and took her seat.

  "The first combatants must enter the lists." "Right," said a voice.