did understand that this tournament was intended for another purpose: consolidating Celeda Bolinbroke’s rule and reminding the country from which she’d been banished for ten long years exactly who she was and the queen she intended to be.
Rovassos’s magnificent pageantries had been known across Aremoria, as well as its surrounding lands, for their wonderful food and entertainments, and the epic melee at their heart. The king had sponsored one annually in the early spring, boasting the year long that his last had been the grandest of all, that the clowns had been riveting, the warriors strong, the stilt-walkers airy as ghosts; three knights nearly died in the melee, you know, and guests had come from as far away as the Third Kingdom, but naturally the awards for best bravery had gone to knights Aremore born and bred.
Wisely, Celedrix did not intend to compete in splendor with the memory of her deposed uncle’s tournaments. Hers would be a celebration, yes, of summertime, of renewal and rebirth, with mummers and clowns, the traditional presentation of colors, and newly commissioned plays celebrating the queen’s courage and triumphant return from the Third Kingdom. There would still be a melee (Hotspur had been commissioned to lead one team of knights against Corio de Or commanding the other), followed the next day by a single-combat roundtable competition. It was the roundtable the audience looked most forward to, for the opportunity to champion their favorites, place wagers, and bestow favors. The champions’ feast on the final night would bring honor to the winners by seating them with the queen, where they might be granted titles or lands, or choose squires for themselves. The food would be magnificent, the fireworks enough to blind the moon, the lovemaking abound—even maybe a marriage or two with the queen and her nobility present to witness.
The difference with which Celedrix prepared to set her tournament most vividly apart from Rovassos’s was simple: Celeda herself would compete in the roundtable.
It was bold, and that Hotspur approved of.
The melee had gone well. Hotspur defeated Corio by breaking through his first aide’s defense and catching the flag off the back of his horse. She’d managed not to kill anyone, too, and she and Corio had celebrated the fact that their melee included no casualties—the crowd might be bloodthirsty, but Hotspur and her mentor disliked wasting men.
Prince Hal told her it wasn’t a waste if their injuries served to bolster the queen’s strength, but Hotspur flicked wine in her face for such a comment.
Today was the roundtable combat. All morning the squires had participated in their own, under the careful eyes of their knights, parents, and some lords who had dragged themselves out of bed early enough after last night’s revelry. Any money won here was too negligible to draw the heaviest bettors, and what the squires earned went directly into the purses of their mentors.
The queen had watched from the royal box, a pavilion decorated in orange and brilliant white.
Now the box was empty but for white-draped chairs and sun-warmed ewers of water. The queen stood near Hotspur in battle regalia. Of thirty-eight participants from across Aremoria, only seven were women, including Celeda, Hotspur, Hal, and Banna Mora. Vindomata of Mercia was not here; she had remained at home with her husband, refusing to celebrate the success of her own rebellion, given the loss of her sons. This was hard for Hotspur, too, without hilarious, angry Vindus or his dour little brother, Dev, urging her on. Cousins, they’d trained together as children, spent winters rampaging across the snowy Perseria forests together. But everyone had lost someone, or something, and Vindomata’s absence made Hotspur uneasy. Already called the King-Killer, she should have been here to prove her friendship with Celedrix.
There would be five rounds of competition: first a joust to cut the number of participants down to sixteen. The remaining four rounds would be sword and buckler, then only sword. Hotspur hardly worried over the joust, and after winning her first round she found Prince Hal beside the royal box. The prince leaned her elbows against the temporary rail and pointed toward the far end of the field where the next combatants prepared: Banna Mora stood beside an armored horse, checking the girth. The former prince gleamed in a beautiful filigreed cuirass fitted to her shape perfectly. Steel faulds layered over her hips almost like a skirt, exaggerating her rear and thick waist. Her gauntlets flashed as she lifted her arms to pull a hood over