Pierce walked across the yard, slung his pack straps over one shoulder,
and hoisted himself into a tree beside the statue.
The wall dropped dizzyingly on the other side into a vast bowl shored up by
brickwork and concrete and ringed with tier upon tier of seats. Groups of dark
figures lounged here and there watching what was going on across the field
below. From that high place, he could see, across the bowl, what seemed a
miniature city of graceful buildings and towers, the past and present of
Wyvernhold history, the lacework of stone ruins among high, colorful, modern
designs, all surrounded by enormous, sprawling walls. Beyond them, he saw the
busy span of the bridge he had driven across, so long ago it seemed impossible
to him that it had been only that morning.
He took his eyes off the restless, mesmerizing roil and glitter of sea, and
looked down at the movement below.
There seemed a number of things going on at once, some of which he recognized
from programs that the antiquated television in the only sports bar in
Desolation Point pulled out of the turbulent air around the cape. He had seen
the ancient jousting games: riders and horses arrayed in colorful swaths of
cloth galloping headlong toward a wooden figure that spun if it were struck by
the long pole in the rider’s hand. It hit the rider with its own straw-
stuffed cudgel if the rider missed. The scattered watchers seemed to be
rooting for the wooden knight: they clapped and whistled vigorously whenever a
rider got walloped by the cudgel.
They were knights, Pierce realized: the darkly clad among the audience in the
seats, and the contenders on the field. They jousted; they raced; they shot
arrows that spanned the millennium between longbows and tech bows. They fought
with broadswords, with rapiers; they fought without weapons in a dozen
different styles, none of which Pierce could name. On a far end of the field,
behind which the seats were empty, they shot weapons that spat blood-red
streaks of lightning; the most accurate of them caused their small, flying
targets to mist into oblivion.
Pierce couldn’t see faces; language from the microphone came to him garbled
with echoes. He moved impulsively, drawn by the knights, wanting to be among
them. He slid off the tree branch onto the top of the wall, then rolled to
hang by his hands before he dropped to the platform behind the last row of
seats. He rose cautiously, not wanting to attract the attention of any of the
wicked weapons on the field. He still wore the black kitchen uniform; at a
distance, he might be unremarkable. He found an aisle between the tiers of
seats, walked down the steep slope, and finally understood the announcer’s
voice.
“Sir Val Duresse has won the Dragon Claw match. Dame Maggie Leighton’s team
has scored highest in the jousting so far. Second place in jousting is still
held by Sir Block of Wood and Straw. Team Sir Jeffry Holmes places third. Next
team of challengers led by Dame Rachel Thistledon please get your mounts to
the lists. Good luck to you against Sir Cudgel. Sir Alexander Beamus has won
Section Three of the longbow tournament. Whoever it was that just dropped over
the wall from the kitchen yard, please proceed down the aisle and onto the
field, where you will be allowed to prove your right to be among us. Good
luck, Sir Kitchen Knight.”
Pierce, one foot suspended, nearly lost his balance and bounced down the aisle
onto the field. He righted himself, arms flailing, pack bouncing, and heard
laughter, applause. If he turned then and there, he could make it back without
anyone likely to recognize him later. But scrambling back over the wall using
the backs of seats and dangling tree limbs would become an event in itself, to
be won or lost by the red-haired chopper whose long black apron was luffing
like a sail in the wind. It made no difference, he realized, whether he
humiliated himself up a tree or on the field; one or the other was inevitable.
He untied the apron; it whirled off like a runaway shadow. He continued down,
his face burning at the cheers and whistles from the crowd.
He saw the announcer gesturing to him as he reached the field. He dodged
around a whirling pair of kickboxers and nearly found himself one of a row of
targets in a sports bow contest.
“Careful, Sir Kitchen Knight.”
Sir Kitchen Clown, more like, Pierce thought grimly.
“Watch out for— Oops.”
Pierce dove across the grass, out of range of a pair of knights in full
antique armor flailing broadswords half-blindly at one another. He got to his
feet, looked around wildly for the next attack.