Chapter 1443: About the hedges(2)

"Lad?" Vilon called, without turning, his eyes mesmerized by what he was seeing.

"Yes ser?" Owen replied, his voice pitched as high with wonder as Vilon had ever heard it.

"Have you ever been to Yarzat?The capital I mean."

"Never, ser. It was the village head’s son that was always sent to deliver our produce for sale at the capital’s market. I never set foot outside my village until I marched off for the king." He turned toward Vilon, a sheepish look crossing his face. "I fear I won’t be much help as a guide."

Not that anyone could have been, with the sheer chaos that greeted them. Along the road from the Magna Strata, Vilon had heard travelers dubbing the whole affair the greatest tournament the South would ever see. And while Vilon hardly had the knowledge to deny that claim, nor to confirm it, there was one thing he could not deny in the slightest.

Many were those who clearly believed it true.

The shadows of the afternoon were growing long when Vilon reined up on the edge of the rising gem of the South.

Dozens upon dozens of pavilions had risen on the grassy field around the city, more than he could ever hope to count. The whole plain was filled with them, and wherever his eyes rose, there they stood. Some were small, fit for a person or two at most, while others looked large enough to house ten men sleeping shoulder to shoulder. Some were square in shape, others rounded at the crown like great overturned bowls. Some were stitched of plain linen, others of sturdy sailcloth, and some, unbelievably, were even of silk, shimmering faintly in what little light the grey afternoon offered.

A rainbow of colors greeted him as he passed, banners streaming from every center pole, more vivid than a summer meadow set ablaze with wildflowers of fire red and sun yellow, of deep purple and pale white, as though nature herself had lost a wager and been made to dress for the occasion.

Upon the cloth, waving and dancing in the restless wind, there were sigils beyond counting. Vilon hardly expected to recognize many. He was no scholar of the noble houses of Kakunia, and even less of Yarzat. Still, he had seen more than his fair share of banners during the War of the Bloody Penny, marching beneath them and bleeding beneath them both, and he had at least expected to know a dozen or so on sight, the way an old soldier knows the faces of men he once fought beside, especially if those soldiers fought on a field of his own, with colorful bolts and memorable animals or figures..

Instead he found he recalled nothing at all, as though the war and every banner that had flown over it belonged to some other man’s memory entirely.

He nudged Chestnut forward, into the press of it all, the road beneath them wide enough for two carts and two horses to pass abreast, hemmed in on either side by canvas and rope.

Sigils swam past him on every hand, more than his eyes could properly hold. Boars rendered in bristling black, tusks curved and cruel. Dogs of every breed a man could name, hounds and mastiffs and one lean grey wolfhound stitched so fine it seemed near ready to leap from the cloth and hunt.

Lions rampant in gold, lions couchant in red, a lion so poorly stitched it looked more a drowned cat than a king of beasts, which earned a smile from Vilon as he passed it. Swords crossed, swords crowned, a single sword driven point down through a field of stars. Hammers too, warhammers and smiths’ hammers both, one banner bearing nothing but a hammer and a single drop of blood beneath it, whatever house that belonged to keeping its meaning close to its chest.

Vilon looked down at his shield, where the white roast of his father’s house laid unimpressed on the wood.

Had it been an eagle at least....

A thousand different colors bled into one another as he rode, reds deep as wine and reds bright as fresh blood, blues pale as a winter sky and blues dark as a drowning sea, greens and golds and one flash of orange.

Dogs wandered loose between the tents, sniffing at boot heels and cook fires and the legs of men too busy to shoo them off.

Here and there, knights sparred with their squires in the cramped spaces between pavilions, wooden blades clacking, curses flying half in jest and half in earnest when a blow landed harder than intended. Horses snorted and stamped as squires and grooms led them about, some being walked cool after a run, others being saddled fresh, a few simply standing hobbled and half asleep, unbothered by the chaos around them the way only a well trained warhorse could be.

Vilon noted that the line into the city ran entirely along the right, a great crawling serpent of carts and riders and folk on foot, all waiting their turn beneath the watchful eyes of guardsmen at the gate. The left side of the road, by contrast, stood near empty. A few carts rattled out from the city proper, empty of cargo, their drivers wearing the particular slump of men who had sold their goods early and were already dreaming of supper and drink, but otherwise the way out was clear, as though no one in their right mind would choose to leave a spectacle such as this before they absolutely had to.

He felt like a fish standing in a desert. He was a knight, and a tested one at that, tested by blood and mud and the screams of dying men, he did not know how rare of a boast that was in this company, but it had to be worth something.

He now had a proper horse beneath him and proper armor upon his back. And yet it felt little different than the days he’d spent following behind his father, wincing when the lance came about and struck his breastplate, hiding away the wicked, shameful wish that it might do more than simply knock the old man off his senses.

It never happened, unfortunately. No matter how fervently he’d hoped for it, in the dark and guilty corners of a boy’s heart where such wishes are born and never quite die.

There wasn’t much to be done as they waited in line. They stood behind a cart pulled by two stocky draft horses, its bed piled high with sacks and crates that smelled faintly of grain and potatoes. Chestnut snorted beneath him, shifting his weight, as if he too could feel the way Vilon’s heart had climbed up into his throat and lodged there.

It was foolish to be nervous now. It would be the better part of a week before the tourney even began, and yet being so close to it, close enough to smell the smoke of a thousand cook fires and hear the ring of practice steel, was unnerving all the same.

As it was, he spotted one banner among the endless sea of them that he actually recognized, a black falcon soaring across a field of silver and blue. The royal banner of Yarzat, the very same that waved above the tall gates of the capital itself, as if declaring ownership not just of the city, but of every soul that had made the long ride toward it, half the South by the look of things.

The voice of his squire woke him from his gazing. "Ser?"

They shuffled a few meters further ahead as another cart rolled past.

"Yes?"

"I was thinking, ser. Back when we were planning our road to Scidna, you said you would only be participating in the grand melee, on the ground." There was an eagerness in Owen’s voice he wasn’t bothering to hide.

There was little use for a squire on the melee after all.

Vilon already knew well enough what the boy was truly asking. That had been back before Lord Vulture, back when they’d had precious little on their backs or in their purse, when a single defeat would have meant utter ruin. But now? Now he had enough silver saved that he could weather a defeat or two without it breaking him.

"I think I will participate in the joust as well," he replied, and found there was genuine confidence behind the words, not the brittle kind he’d worn like borrowed armor for most of his life.

They would spend this coming week training with the lance, sharpening what little skill he had. "And I will participate in the melee too. That, truth be told, is where I believe I stand the best chance, and the one I actually look forward to. I have some experience with a proper confused melee, after all, more than most, I’d wager."He turned to the boy to saw he was smiling.

He was not the only one doing so.

"A wise choice, ser,"

Came a voice from just behind, toned with amusement and approval. "The joust is a game for lords to prattle about their new shining armor to the pretty ladies in their silken gowns. The melee is where a man learns what he’s truly made of, steel to steel, and where for once the sound of fighting can overwhelm the excitement of people who found in these games as much favorite alternative than a proper bloody war."

Vilon turned around toward the voice.

The man smiled, one that had a hole where a canine should have been. ’’Isn’t that the way of it ser?’’