Gene Wolfe - The Wizard

“Oh, Lady! Dear Lady of Skai! It’s...”

“Ordained?” I suggested.

Gaynor’s eyes brimmed with tears. “It’s for me, too. So the king will see that—that I’m not what he thinks. The Valfather will give the victory to the right, won’t he?”

“That’s what people believe, I know. It may be true.”

“And she said something awful to my face. That I’m a slut or something. We haven’t decided exactly what it was, and probably we won’t have to. So I challenged her and it’s at noon, and you have to die for me.” She sobbed, hot tears rolling down smooth cheeks red with cold. “Only if you do, my husband will think he’s right, and—and...”

“I won’t, Your Majesty. You’ll be vindicated.”

“She’s going to try to kill you.” The queen looked around nervously, as if she thought Morcaine hiding behind a snow-covered rose bush. “She likes you, and she’ll try to kill you anyway. You don’t know her.”

I said, “She’ll naturally chose a champion whose courage and skill won’t embarrass her, Your Majesty. I needn’t know her inmost thoughts to know that. In her place, I’d do the same thing. Are we to fight to the death?”

“No.” Gaynor had plucked a handkerchief nearly as large as a man’s from sleeve. “It never is.”

“Then he’ll yield to me when he can no longer resist, and no one will die.”

“It’s not like the melee, with blunt swords and crowned lances. Don’t you understand? Real weapons, real fighting.”

“That’s well. I had a bad bowstring, but I’ve got a good sword.”

She rose, her lovely face no higher than the dragon on my chest. “Hear me, Sir Able. Girls aren’t supposed to be serious at my age. Not ‘til they’ve had a child. But I may never have one, I’m still a virgin, and I’m as serious as I’ll ever be. I said it was fun, because it was then. But it’s not now, because I like you and you’ll die.”

“All men do, Your Majesty.”

“And all women. I know. But listen. She wants him to put me away and marry again. If she wins, he may. He could say it was what the Overcyns wanted.” Gaynor took a deep breath, her inhalation loud in the quiet garden. “And I’d like that. But I have a duty, and I love him. And I’m not sterile. It’s just that... That—”

She had begun to sob. I held her and comforted her as well as I could. At last she said, “You’ll do it? For me? Champion my virtue before the king?”

“A hundred times over, Your Majesty.” It was the truth, and the truth was that I would have done it a thousand times in order to speak to the king and claim Disiri.

Wistan was waiting when the queen dismissed me. “It’s a Trial by Combat, Sir Able. The princess insulted the queen, and she demands satisfaction. Nobody knows who the champions will be.” He gave me a searching look. “They all want to be the queen’s, all the knights. A lot say Sir Gerrune.” He waited for me to speak, but I did not.

“Only a lot more say it’ll be you, because of her scarf. Everybody knows whose scarf it is. Uns is boasting about you among the churls, and he and Pouk are laying bets.”

I suppose I grinned.

“They’ll be rich if you win. Rich for churls, anyway.”

“What about you, Wistan? Won’t you be rich too?”

“I haven’t bet. Is it all right if I do?”

“Sure.”

“Then I will. I got some gold up north, like we all did. The way Pouk and Uns are betting is they give odds you’ll be her champion. Two to one. Then the other party has to give them two to one against you, if you are.”

There are moments that remain fixed in memory, in some sense ever-present. Of all my fights no other stays with me like that one. I can shut my eyes and see the bailey as it was then—the winter sunshine, the cold air sparkling with snow, the pennants and banners snapping in the wind, a mad dance of bears and elephants, falcons and bulls and basilisks and camelopards, red, blue, green, yellow, black, and white. I hear the thunderous cracking of the great sea-blue flag of Celidon, with the royal Nykr embroidered in gold.

To my right sat the court, the king and queen in high places, Morcaine to the king’s left, in a seat not quite so high. Around them clustered the peers and their ladies, proud men and gracious women in fur and velvet. To left and right the knights, muffled in thick cloaks, with here and there the gleam of steel. Facing them, the commons, half the town of Kingsdoom having turned out to watch, delighted on this winter afternoon to have a real fight to entertain them, a combat in which either knight, or both, might die.

For this I had practiced day after day in the golden halls and airy courts of the Valfather’s castle. Not to fight the Giants of Winter and Old Night, nor to fight the Angrborn, sending arrow after arrow into their upturned faces as Cloud cantered over their heads.

The test had come at last, the deciding battle to which my life had been directed, and I knew a joy whose price had been paid in sweat and stratagem and hard blows. This was the service of the Valfather, and his service was beatitude and exultation. The lance of spiny orange I had shaped was in my hand, Eterne at my side. A double-bitted ax bought in anticipation of the melee hung from my saddle, both edges ground and honed until they would split bone with a tap.

Cloud knew my mind as she always did, and arched her neck and pawed the ground. There was no barrier, as there is in jousting. This was not jousting but war.

Across the bailey stood her opponent, a stallion taller by two hands—her opponent, but not mine—and the horse cloth the stallion wore was black, the silver device on its sides that of no knight but Morcaine’s margygr, a fanciful representation of her mother, Setr’s, and the king’s.

The Nykr King of Arms rode to the center, and with him a pursuivant who repeated his words so all might hear—so all might hear, I wrote, but so still was every tongue that there was no need of him. I will give the words of the Nykr King of Arms, and not trouble with the repetitions.

“This day shall be joined in trial by arms the gallant champions of Her Most Royal Majesty Queen Gaynor and of Her Royal Highness Princess Morcaine.”

There was a little buzz of talk, soon stilled, as the younger man repeated what the Nykr King of Arms had said.

“Her Most Royal Majesty Queen Gaynor is the aggrieved party. Her champion upon this field is Sir Able of Redhall, a knight of Sheerwall.”

As previously, the pursuivant bellowed the same words.

“Her Royal Highness Princess Morcaine is the aggrieving party.” The Nykr King of Arms paused to look toward the riderless stallion. “Her champion upon this field—and he come—is to be Sir Loth of Narrowhouse.”

To my right I heard one knight say to another, “Loth? He’s dead.” To which the other replied, “That was Loth of Northholding.”

I knew then who my opponent would be.

He came soon enough, his dead face hidden by his helm, the charge on his shield a black elk on a white field. I put on my own helm at that point, with the queen’s white scarf knotted about the black dragon that was its crest.

“At the first sounding of the clarion, the champions are to make ready. At the second, all save the champions and their squires must depart the field.”

I looked then for Sir Loth’s squire and saw a lad some trifle older than Wistan. He kept his back to the barrier, and seemed terrified.

“Upon the third sounding, the champions will engage. Neither their squires no any other persons may take part in their combat. Should a champion yield, his squire may succor him. Gentle right shall be observed. When a champion shall claim gentle right, his squire may help him to his feet and rearm him. Nothing more. Champions, raise your lances to signify your agreement.”