to anyone skilled enough to split him from a saddle, but his sea of conquered pennants as well! Such arrogance, my lord, begs for deliverance.”
“At any other time, I am certain Lord Lucien would rise to the challenge,” Nicolaa murmured. “However, since the tournament is being held to celebrate his wedding, he would not want to see his young bride cheated of her nuptial due through a misplaced lance.”
Wardieu laid his hands flat on the tabletop and began to thrum his long fingers softly against the linen. It was the custom for tourneys to be staged for formal occasions and celebrations. In the case of a wedding, it was acceptable for the groom to select one of his favoured knights to act the part of his champion, thus saving the bride the humiliating possibility of becoming a widow the same day.
“So,” he mused, “this … Scourge of Mirebeau wishes to ease the aggravations he has suffered in his journey by paring a few skulls?”
“It was the mood I sensed,” Friar agreed guilelessly. “He is, after all, the dowager’s equerry, and in his day has unhorsed the best knights in all of France, Normandy, and the southern provinces. But if memory serves, he is well into his third decade; not a young man at all and no longer in his prime. I am certain you could find some eager, robust young varlets bristling to earn their gold spurs by tipping La Seyne’s nose into the dirt.”
Wardieu’s fingers were stilled again. A distinct ruddiness darkened his complexion at the inference he too must be considered past his prime by the bishop’s standards.
Servanne risked a quick glance at Friar before leaning back in her chair again. He was saying all the right things, playing on the Dragon’s vanity as a champion, pricking his natural envy over a rival’s reputation—but why? Why was he goading De Gournay into a match with La Seyne Sur Mer?
“He also said—” The bishop appeared to catch himself and waved the thought away with an apologetic smile. “No, no. I would be speaking out of turn.”
“He also said what” Wardieu demanded flatly.
Friar glanced along the row of guests seated on the dais as if noticing for the first time they had all become as silent as death. “Why … he, ahh, also said something about not wanting to take unfair advantage of a rival who has not appeared in too many tourneys during the past year or two, and who may be … er … somewhat lacking in form and, ah”—Friar looked into Wardieu’s cold blue eyes and swallowed hard—“… nerve.”
Servanne missed Wardieu’s immediate reaction, for at that same moment, purely by chance, her gaze settled on the six cowled figures occupying a section of one of the lower tables. Resembling large gray moths, they were garbed somberly, as befitting clerics in the bishop’s service. They humbly declined the richer foods in favour of black bread and fruit, and drank sparingly of the watered wine. With their heads bowed and their hoods drawn forward, their features were, for the most part, shadowed and indistinct, but Servanne thought she recognized five of them from amongst the Wolf’s men at Thornfeld Abbey. The sixth was Gil Golden.
Another wave of faintness swept through her, the sudden weakness causing her to lose hold of her jewelled eating knife. It dropped onto the table with a clatter, which might have prompted a neck or two to part company with its skin if it had not occurred the exact instant Wardieu’s fist slammed on the wood and sent a volley of buttocks leaping off their seats.
“By the rood,” he roared, “we shall see who is lacking in form and nerve! He shall indeed have a match on his hands, and when he finds himself well-spitted and rolling in the dust with his entrails tangled about his ears, we shall also see who suffers the greater mortification!”
A rousing cheer of support went up from the crowded tables. Chairs scraped over the stone floor as knights stood and raised their goblets and their swords in a flashing show of support for their liege lord. The quiet tension of the previous moments burst with a frenzy and there were counter challenges issued, boasts proclaimed, and a voracious round of wagering begun.
Wardieu, flushed with enthusiasm, did not see the look on Friar’s face, or the lingering glance that passed between the visiting bishop and Servanne de Briscourt. A toast was made, followed by another. By magic, a pair of