by Unknown
"Is it just a regulation competition?" Maltroos queried.
"Apparently not, but I don't know what is to be different about it."
"Are we still fighting with our regular weapons?"
"I have told you all I know—and in truth what I know is but a rumor and may not be factual at all. We will both have to be patient until the formal announcement, and that will be a mere few hours from now."
"Do you have a plan to meet with Saxtry today?" Cartimmar continued. "I saw him in the hallway in the west wing a short while ago. He was dressed as if to go for a ride. He acknowledged me kindly; he isn't all full of regal airs like his sister, Princess Regnilux. He's a regular, down-to-earth fellow, Prince Saxtry is. Courteous and kind, friendly yet noble, engaging and charming, and he seems to genuinely care about all of us who live here in the palace. I can see why you are in love with him."
Maltroos smiled softly at Cartimmar's words praising Prince Saxtry. "I told him I would seek him out in the apple orchard after the fight—unless I am mortally wounded. He said he might come and watch the fight, too. I always try especially hard to put on a good fight when he is watching. I just pray that Vandrume doesn't make mincemeat of me in front of Saxtry."
"King Fregou rarely lets it get that far," Cartimmar said consolingly. "You know he usually stops the fight if one pledger has delivered a telling gash to the other."
"Yet look at what happened to poor Mantome last winter. Rudgear pierced his heart with one swift blow of his sword, and even though the king called to stop the fight, Mantome was dead before the doctor could even be summoned from the sidelines."
"Yes," Cartimmar agreed, "the life of us pledgers is fraught with danger. We knew that when we signed on. We are fed and clothed, housed in the castle, and given a goodly stipend on top of that, but we must fight whenever the king commands us to, and there is always the risk of a mortal wound—or a disfiguring one." His hand went to the jagged scar on his face.
"Saxtry says that when he becomes king he will abolish the fighting. He says that there are other ways to amuse himself that don't involve watching men try to kill each other. He says he will endow all the remaining pledgers with three sacks of gold apiece and send us out into the world to find another way to earn money. I hope I am still alive then."
"If you are, will Saxtry marry you then? Once he is king, who is to say that he cannot consort with a commoner, a pledger, without an ounce of royal blood in him?"
"That is a nice thought and very possible, but King Fregou is still relatively young and very healthy. It could be many decades before Saxtry takes the throne." Maltroos sighed wistfully and shook his head. "I do not wish to go skulking around for endless years as we do now, hiding our love and meeting furtively. I want our love to be out in the open. I want to live openly with Saxtry. I want to share a home with him—and a bed. I don't like sex being sneaky and hurried, always with the fear that we will be discovered. I don't like having to hide my feelings from the world. I don't like having people think I am not good enough for the man I love—even if he doesn't feel that way himself, and even if the world doesn't know that I love him."
"Love is never an easy proposition," said Cartimmar with a sigh. Cartimmar had been married to a fellow pledger, Bostroup, who had been killed in a battle in the king's arena five years earlier. Cartimmar still mourned his late husband. "But maybe King Fregou will soften his thinking. Or maybe he will die unexpectedly early so that Saxtry will ascend to the throne sooner than you think."
"While I wish no ill to befall our king, I devoutly hope for that to happen. Oh my word, Cartimmar, my friend, if only Saxtry could ascend to the throne now. If only I could live freely and openly with the man I love—and be legally wed to him, too!"
"Then you would be the king's consort, a semi-ruler in your own right."
"I care not for the trappings of royalty or the privileges of a ruler." Maltroos frowned. "All I want is marriage to the man I love and the freedom to live openly with him."
"That is all you want? That is a tall order indeed, my friend," Cartimmar observed. "Well, I will take my leave of you now and return to my quarters. I ate too much at our midday meal, and now I am in want of a nap."
"I ate sparingly. I wanted to be light on my feet and alert for my battle with Vandrume."
"Good thinking indeed. I will be in the stands at the arena, cheering you on. Good luck and good skills to you, my dear comrade."
"Thank you, my friend."
Cartimmar left Maltroos's quarters, and Maltroos resumed polishing his sword till he was content that it could not possibly shine any more brilliantly. Then he lay down to rest till it was time for the big event.
At three-thirty he left his quarters to go to the arena, which was just outside the castle. He was dressed in pants that ended directly below the knees and were tied there, a soft, puffy-sleeved shirt, and a leather vest. Pledgers did not wear any sort of armor in the arena. Their bodies and faces were fully vulnerable to the swords of their opponents.
Word had gotten around that there was to be a big announcement, and most of the pledgers were gathered in the stands of the arena, wanting to hear what it was all about.
At one minute past four, as Maltroos and Vandrume waited on opposite sides of the arena for their fight to begin, King Fregou stood up in the royal box and clapped his hands for attention. A royal trumpeter blew his horn, a much more effective way to get the crowd's attention. Fregou spoke loudly, and his voice carried well. Maltroos moved in closer, the better to hear his words.
"Hear ye, hear ye," the king began. "By royal proclamation, there shall be a grand competition among those of my pledgers who wish to participate. It will be an elimination contest in more ways than one. Those who lose will be eliminated permanently—by death. There will be no amnesty, no stopping the fight to save the lives of the valiant but losing warrior. The winners will face each other in a second round, then a third—as many rounds as are necessary till we have one clear winner.
"Participation in this competition will be strictly voluntary, and there will be no penalties for those pledgers who choose not to participate. After all, the losers will all forfeit their lives.
"And the prize to the winner? Yes—here comes the good part. The winner, the champion pledger, the one man who emerges victorious, will have his choice of the hand of one of my children in marriage. Prince Saxtry or Princess Regnilux will be his to wed."
Excitement coursed through Maltroos's veins like steam. If he won the competition he could marry Saxtry! No more sneaking around! No more hiding! No more clandestine meetings! They could declare their mutual and ever-growing love, sanctify it with the marriage rites, and live together openly.
Yes, he would be a co-regent, but that was the least of the benefits that attracted him. It was Saxtry he wanted, Saxtry and nothing more.
He looked up into the stands to see if Saxtry was looking at him and smiling. Indeed, Saxtry was facing Maltroos, but it was with a worried countenance, not a beaming one. Maltroos flashed him a puzzled frown. Why was the prince not elated? Here was their big chance!
Then the trumpets sounded, signaling the end of the king's announcement and the start of the fights. Vandrume and Maltroos approached each other warily, swords drawn, eyes alert. Maltroos struck first, aiming for Vandrume's throat, but Vandrume sidestepped nicely and the lunge carried the sword into thin air and nothing more.
Now as Maltroos whirled around to again face Vandrume, Vandrume took aim at Maltroos's hind end. It was considered the depths of degradation to be pierced in the rear quarters by an opponent. A blow to the heart or the jugular vein might be fatal, but a stab in the hind end was the epitome of humiliation. Maltroos barely escaped the rapidly advancing sword and in return, took a wild swing at Vandrume, who deflected the blow by a stroke of his forearm against the midpoint of the blade.
As Vandrume lunged toward Maltroos's midsection, Maltroos jumped back and sidestepped, and as he did, his eyes swept across the stands a
nd lingered momentarily on Prince Saxtry. Saxtry was watching Maltroos with more than the usual concern written across his face.
Maltroos wondered at this expression. Why was Saxtry not smiling encouragingly as he usually did? Distracted by this question, he failed to focus fully on Vandrume's actions, and as his sword came flashing through the air, glinting in the sunlight of the arena, Maltroos took evasive action a second too late and felt the terrible pain as Vandrume's sword pierced his left shoulder.
The trumpeters blew a three-note trill, indicating that the king had signaled for the fight to stop. Vandrume would be declared the winner, but Maltroos would be spared any further injury. Unlike the competition the king had announced a short while earlier, this was not a lethal fight, and Maltroos's life was not forfeit.
The palace doctor was waiting off to the side to tend to any injured combatants, and he went to work now to stanch the bleeding and make Maltroos more comfortable. He applied a poultice of herbs meant to lessen the pain, as well as a bandage of strips of clean cloth to halt the flow of blood and absorb what blood was still emanating from the wound.
Cartimmar had been watching from the stands, and he hurried down now to join Maltroos and inquire about his condition. "How badly does it hurt?" he asked Maltroos.
"It's nothing," Maltroos said with a wave of his hand, wanting to make light of his wound, but as he waved his right hand, his body moved, including his injured left shoulder, and he winced as fresh pain shot through him.
"Let me walk you back to your quarters," Cartimmar offered when the doctor had patched up Maltroos as best he could and Maltroos was free to leave.
Lowering his voice so that none but his best friend could hear him, Maltroos reminded him, "I am supposed to meet with Saxtry in the apple orchard after the fight. I am not going back to my quarters yet."
"Will he still show up? Won't he assume you are going back to your rooms to rest in the light of this wound?" reasoned Cartimmar.
"It's possible, but it's also possible that he'll be there, and I don't want to miss the opportunity to be with him," Maltroos responded.
"Are you sure you're up to walking that far? You did lose more than a bit of blood," Cartimmar pointed out.
"I'll be fine," said Maltroos, with more assurance in his voice than he truly felt.
There was another battle underway between two other pledgers, but neither Maltroos nor Cartimmar cared to stay and watch it. Maltroos walked, albeit a bit unsteadily, out of the arena and toward the apple orchard, bidding his friend goodbye when Cartimmar headed back toward the castle.
Prince Saxtry was waiting for him in their usual spot, the most secluded part of the orchard. "I didn't think you would come," he said, embracing Maltroos gingerly so as not to hurt his injured shoulder.
"Then why are you here?" Maltroos asked, logically enough.
"Well, just in case," Saxtry said. "And indeed, here you are." He stroked his hand down Maltroos's right arm till it reached Maltroos's. Then he grasped Maltroos's hand and held it tightly. "Don't enter that competition!" Saxtry begged his beloved.
Maltroos pulled back, aghast. These were not the words he had expected to hear. "Why not?" he asked, feeling his eyes go wide with bafflement. "It would give us everything we ever wanted! We could live together openly, married and sanctified. We could declare our love and no longer have to skulk around meeting like this."
"That's if you survive," said Saxtry sardonically. "And if you lose any one of the battles, I lose you forever. This is a fight to the finish, to the death of one competitor in each round. Just one loss and you are gone from this world and from my life. I couldn't bear it. I would rather keep sneaking around and at least know that I have you in my life." He clutched Maltroos and held him close. Maltroos could feel the tension in Saxtry's body. His arms, enclosing Maltroos's torso, were tight with fear, and his body was completely tensed as well.
"You know I am a good fighter," Maltroos said soothingly. "You know I usually win my battles."
"'Usually' is not good enough in this case. Once in a while you do lose. Look at today's fight. What happened to you today? Vandrume ran through your shoulder as if it were a plate of gruel."
"I was thinking of the competition to come, of the possibility of winning your hand in marriage and living with you openly." Maltroos stepped back and looked steadily at his beloved.
"And you think your mind won't be similarly distracted in the competition? When everything is riding on the outcome of the fight, when not only your chance to live with me openly but your very life is on the line, you think you won't be at least as distracted as you were today? Love of my life, I beg you, don't enter the competition!"
Saxtry pulled Maltroos fiercely toward him and squeezed him in a crushing hug. Maltroos embraced Saxtry just as determinedly and squeezed him just as tightly, but he said to him, "I have to, my love, I have to. In the first place, I would forever brand myself a coward if I didn't, and in truth, you might feel the same way about me in time to come."
"I wouldn't!" Saxtry protested. "I would think you were sane and sensible not to risk your life under such circumstances. Fighting as you do is dangerous enough as it is. My father does not always stop the fight before one pledger deals a mortal blow to the other. Sometimes the very first blow is a fatal one. You risk your life every time you get into the arena. But in this upcoming competition, death is assured for one of the combatants in every round. It is a given that one of each pair of pledgers will die. What a terrible idea my father had! I am hoping that nobody signs up for it. Then it will be called off and nobody will be killed—especially you."
"I am signing up for it, my love. How can I not when the prize is so great?"
"Then perhaps you will be the only one to sign up, and you will win by default."
"Would your father grant me your hand if nobody else signed up for the competition but me?" Maltroos asked, doubt coloring his voice.
"I do not know."
"Well anyhow, that brings me to the second and third reasons why I must compete. The second reason is, of course, the prize, the chance to live with you openly, married and in love for the whole world to see."
"And the third reason?" Saxtry asked.
"The third reason is simply that if I do not enter the competition, and someone else wins, he might claim your hand in marriage rather than that of your sister. I do not care if someone else wins the competition and marries Regnilux, but what if someone else claims you? I could not bear to see you married to anyone else."
"Ummm—I had not thought of that," admitted Saxtry. "I would be bound in marriage to a man I did not love. But I would still see you on the sly." His face brightened at the thought. "Things would not be much different than they are now."
"I could not bear the thought of some other man sharing your bed at night, falling asleep in the warmth of your body, listening to your comforting snores—"
"I do not snore!" exploded Saxtry.
"My love, you do! Just last week, when we made love among the haystacks and drifted off to sleep afterward, you were snoring quite vigorously. It was a pleasure to hear. I knew it meant you were beside me; I would love to hear that sound every night, night after night, all through the night. But it would absolutely tear me apart to know someone else was enjoying that pleasure while I was consigned to my bed in solitary slumber."
"Why does my father think he can marry me off to whoever he decrees will have my hand!" stormed Saxtry. "I am a prince, not chattel. Do I not have some say as to who I am to be wed to? How does Father come to assume the right to tell me whom to marry?"
"Because he is king," Maltroos answered with a long, drawn-out sigh. "And you, his son and heir, are still his subject. Even you must do the king's bidding, not only because he is your father, but because he is your king."
"In truth, it is a cursed existence I lead. If only I could run away from it all. I would gladly give up my future as king of Forstwick if you and I could escape to another country and live o
ut our lives as simple subjects." A slow smile spread across Saxtry's face. "Is it possible, my love? Could we do it?"
Maltroos shook his head sadly. "It would bring great shame upon your family and cause a terrible rift between you and your father. It is quite an impractical scheme and ill-advised. No, there is nothing for it but for me to enter in the competition and try to win your hand in an open and above-board manner."
"I wish you would not do this," Saxtry pleaded in a voice filled with anguish. "Please reconsider—give some thought to saving your life. I cannot bear the thought of living without you. Having you die would be the worst thing that could happen to me."
"It would be plenty terrible for me too," Maltroos pointed out, "but I must take that risk. Having you married to someone else would be just as awful. It would be a living death for me."
"Then I can only hope that you are the only pledger who signs up for the competition," Saxtry said with downcast eyes. "Even if my father does not award my hand to you by default, at least you will be alive and we can go on as we are now. That would not be the worst of all possible outcomes."
"No, it would not," agreed Maltroos, "but I would rather win you outright and have you openly for my own. Perhaps only one other pledger will sign up, and then I will have only one opponent to defeat in order to win your hand."
"Again you are assuming you will win," said Saxtry mournfully.
"Don't I usually?"
"'Usually' is not the same as 'always,'" Saxtry reminded his beloved. "Now I had better get back to the palace before I am missed. My father is receiving a delegation from the kingdom of Montoyone before the evening meal, and he expects Regnilux and me to be at his side when that happens."
They embraced and kissed deeply, Saxtry's tongue and Maltroos's dueling for dominance as each tongue quested into the other man's mouth. At length their bodies separated, and they parted company with fond swats on each other's hindquarters.
Maltroos gave Saxtry a few minutes' head start before returning to the castle himself. As he approached the drawbridge over the moat, he spotted Cartimmar nearing the drawbridge from the opposite direction and slowed down to wait for the arrival of his friend.
