Guy Kay - A Song for Arbonne

Ranald would have sons to succeed him at Garsenc and to follow Blaise into the clergy; there would be daughters to bind other families with the hoops of marriage vows. And eventually, perhaps not so far in the future, there might be even more than all of this—there might be the throne itself. A Garsenc ruling in Cortil, and the borders of Gorhaut itself stretching all the time, though first—first of all things, of course—reaching across the mountain passes to the south, to Arbonne, where they were godless and heretical, ruled by women and womanish men steeped in their blood-soaked rites.

Blaise had known almost all of this from very early in his life. He had been the one Galbert talked to when the boys were young. There had been a brief time when he hadn't understood why that was so, and then a longer period when he'd felt sorry for Ranald. It had all been long ago.

"Boots," said Rudel.

Blaise lifted first his left leg and then his right.

"All right," said Valery. Blaise stood up, and Rudel reached around his waist and buckled on the long, Aulensburg-forged sword in its plain soldier's scabbard. From the table he hefted the light helmet. Blaise took it from him and set it on his head. Valery was waiting with the round, unornamented shield. Blaise took that too.

"Where do you want your knives?" Valery asked.

"One for the belt. I have the other." Valery asked no further questions, neither did Rudel. They, too, had both been through this before. Rudel, his face and manner sober, lifted a sleek black knife from the trunk beside the tent flap and handed it to Blaise.

Blaise smiled briefly at him. "Do you remember? You gave me this one?"

Rudel made a quick, warding sign. "I did no such thing. I found it for you. You paid me a copper piece for it. We don't give knives as gifts, you ignorant northerner."

Blaise laughed. "Forgive me. I forgot that you are a superstitious Portezzan farmer at heart. However did you get permission to leave your hoe in the vineyards to travel among men of rank?"

A frivolous gibe, not worthy of a response and receiving none, for the trumpets sounded then.

Valery and Rudel moved to stand on either side of the tent flaps. The tradition was for the squires to say nothing at this time; farewells of any sort were thought to be invitations to fate. Blaise knew this. He looked at each of them and smiled. He was still calm, but there was a slight telltale acceleration to his pulsebeat now, as silence settled like a bird to a branch outside.

He nodded, and Valery and Rudel each drew back a flap of the tent. He stepped past the two of them, ducking his head, and he came out into sunshine and the green grass of the battleground.

Quzman of Arimonda was the first person he saw, standing at the entrance to his own tent on the far side of the field. A banner was flying behind him: three black bulls on a crimson field. Blaise registered the curved sword worn across the Arimondan's back in the western fashion, and he saw the polished golden shield. He glanced east to check and remember the angle of the rising sun; that shield could blind him if the Arimondan used it to catch and throw back the light. Blaise was aware, but only as background, of excited, rapacious murmurs coming from all around them. A death challenge was the keenest sport there was.

The trumpets sounded again, briefly, and Blaise turned towards the central pavilion as the herald of Arbonne stepped forward. He was aware that his heart was beating even more rapidly now, but not from anticipation of the battle, not yet. There was something still to come, before the fighting.

The herald's rich voice rolled out, sonorously naming the most illustrious of those assembled there. Blaise saw King Daufridi of Valensa sitting next to the countess, his bearded features unreadable, betraying nothing more than idle, polite interest.

"To my left," cried the herald at last, his trained voice carrying effortlessly over the grass and the densely packed pavilions, "stands Quzman di Perno of Arimonda, prepared to lay his life before Corannos and Rian in this matter of his family's honour." He paused. Blaise drew a breath. It had come. "All right," he said to the two men behind him. "Do it." He didn't look back, but as the herald of Arbonne turned towards him he heard the rustle and flap of two banners being run up to fly above his tent, and a moment later there came, truly like the roaring of sea surf in wind, a swelling of sound that nearly drowned the herald's urgently rising voice.

"To my other hand," the herald proclaimed, "equally prepared to defend the honour of his name, stands Blaise de Garsenc of Gorhaut, who here lays claim before this assembled gathering of the six nations and upon this holy field where the god and goddess are judges of honour and worth, to the crown of the Kingdom of Gorhaut, falsely now held by traitorous Ademar!"

People were on their feet; the herald was shouting now. "En Blaise has also declared that this combat, freely entered into by him against a felon so proclaimed by the countess of Arbonne, shall serve as a warrant for the worth of his claim, and he willingly lays his life at hazard before you all in this moment of asserting his right to that same crown."

The last was scarcely heard over the thunder of noise from the pavilions and the standing grounds on the other side. It didn't matter whether the herald was audible or not. The banners told the story. Blaise turned slowly—it was all theatre now, all symbol, until the killing began—and he nodded his head, as an equal to his equals, to Signe de Barbentain and then to Daufridi of Valensa. And the countess of Arbonne rose, in the presence of her people and those gathered from the other countries of the world, and gestured to Blaise with an extended hand in welcome, equal to equal. There was screaming now. Blaise ignored it. He waited. One long moment, then another, and finally, the hairs rising on the back of his neck, he saw Daufridi stand. Tall and proud, the king of Valensa turned to left and right, not hurrying, a master of moments such as this, and then very slowly, facing Blaise, he laid his right hand on his left shoulder in the coran's salute.

He had done it. There had been no way of knowing if he would. It was not quite the full gesture of welcome that Signe had offered—Daufridi had far too complex a game of his own to play for that to be possible—but he had given more than they'd had any right to expect: an acknowledgement that Blaise was worthy of a king's standing up to recognize him.

Blaise closed his eyes with relief, and then opened them quickly again. He must not be seen to have doubted, though of course he had. There had been no promises from Daufridi at all—and certainly none regarding an event so unexpectedly swift to develop as this one had been. Leaving that inn outside the walls two nights ago, he had offered only the unreassuring remark that he would think on what Bertran had said. He had done so, evidently. He was with them, at least this far. Blaise was under no illusions though: if the King of Valensa ever decided that they were a greater danger than Ademar and Galbert, he would be swift in his denunciation. But for the moment, in the midst of this tumultuous maelstrom of sound, he had risen to his feet to welcome Blaise to the stage of world affairs. It was something; it was, in fact, a great deal. Keeping his expression as serene and unrevealing as he could, Blaise turned away from the pavilions to face his own tent, and so looked up for the first time at what flew above it now.

The rampant bear of Garsenc, crimson on its deep blue ground, carried its own full measure of significance for those who had not even known who he was until this moment. And above it, in pride and glory and most brazen declaration, flew the banner of the kings of Gorhaut.