AT NOON THE NEXT day, the people of Chirbury were drawn to the town square by the ringing of the church bell. They filtered into the square and amassed on the edges of it. The center had been cleared and a barrier made of heavy tree branches resting on barrels kept the spectators out of the tournament area.
A group of pipers and drummers were heralding the start of the games, the heavy, slow beat of their drums beckoning everyone.
At the same time, the gates were thrown open and Llewelyn and his army entered the town, walking down the length of the main street that was lined with Wulfstan’s men and into the square. Llewelyn sat upon the only horse given entry, his injured leg thrust out in front of him.
At the east end of the square, farthest away from the main street, was a series of awnings protecting chairs and benches. Aethelfreda’s senior advisors sat beneath the shade cloth with Aethelfreda in the center of them on her grand iron chair. Another chair of similar stature was sitting next to her.
Llewelyn was offered the chair and with the help of his men, he dismounted and hopped over to it. He nodded his thanks to Aethelfreda before sitting upon the thick cushion, settling into it with a sigh.
Even Alfwynn was in attendance, sitting in a smaller chair beside her mother, a cushion at her back. She was pale and spoke barely above a whisper and her mother would occasionally grip her hand and squeeze it.
Sydney stood by Alfwynn’s shoulder, between her and her mother. She wore the full mail jerkin under her gunna, and her sword and her long knife in her belts. This was the position Aethelfreda had demanded she take during the games, when she had beckoned Sydney to her side after the breakfast meal. She was to protect both of them if violence broke out. “Which it may well do if the decision reached by these games is not to the liking of the men,” Aethelfreda added dryly.
Sydney agreed with the Lady that it might go that way and had gathered all her weapons. She even tucked a knife into the top of her boot, just in case.
For now, it seemed that every soldier in the square was merely curious to see how this odd arrangement would work. They were armed, yet they were laughing among themselves, jostling for the best viewing positions and calling out to the other army, with insults and jests. The soldiers of Powys spoke English well enough to be understood and the verbal one-upmanship continued until Wulfstan stepped into the center of the cleared area and held up his hands.
The drums fell silent. So did the people watching him.
“We gather today to settle grievances between our two kingdoms, by the matching of three champions apiece. The side with the greater number of wins will be determined the stronger of the two and their demands will be honored by the loser.”
There was a great deal of murmuring among the audience. Many of the townsfolk and soldiers were hearing this for the first time. In a world where battle was the only way they knew to settle issues between kingdoms and countries, a formalized and limited combat to determine the outcome would be a startling idea.
Sydney heard very few negative notes in the whispers around her. Good.
She scanned the concentration of Powys fighters standing on the other side of the square. Somewhere among them would be Alex and Rafe, although she had spotted neither of them yet. She wondered if Alex would approve of the formality of the start of the games. He had suggested limited combat, while Aethelfreda had filled in the plan with pageantry, to help everyone feel that justice had been done.
Wulfstan waited for the mutters to die down. “To win a match, a warrior must fell his opponent so that he does not get up again. A warrior can also choose to yield.”
Sydney wondered if anyone would yield. On a battlefield, no one watched anyone else fight, for they were too busy fighting for themselves. Here in this square, every move would be observed and analyzed. To yield too quickly would bring shame upon the warrior and dishonor upon their army and leader. They would be motivated to fight as hard as they could.
Not for the first time, she admired Alex’s idea of settling this dispute with games. It seemed simple on the surface yet there were subtleties she was only beginning to understand.
“For the first match, warriors step forward.”
On the left side of the square in relation to where Sydney was standing, the timbers were lifted off the barrels and a Mercian soldier moved through into the square. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, wearing full battle gear, including the helmet. Sydney didn’t know him, but she had listened to Aethelfreda’s strategizing that morning and knew that the first champion was a man called Wilheard. Wilheard was reputed to be the strongest man in the Lady’s army and a good fighter. Dogged and determined.
Wilheard swung his sword experimentally, a smile on his face. The blade swished through the air and an atavistic shiver rippled over the crowd. A soft sigh went up from dozens of mouths.
From the other side of the square, the pole was raised and a Powys soldier stepped through. Like most of Powys, he wore no helmet. His mail shirt hung to his knees with the split in the middle. He wore leather armguards and no other armor or protection.
As he entered, he raised his hands, his sword in one of them. A cheer went up from the watching Powys fighters. Llewelyn laughed. “Gethin has been looking forward to demonstrating his superiority with a sword,” he told Aethelfreda.
“His grave will be no bigger than normal, I assure you,” Aethelfreda replied tartly.
Llewelyn laughed even more loudly and drank from the cup of wine he had been handed. He was enjoying himself immensely.
Wulfstan backed up a few steps and waved the two fighters closer to each other. “The first match begins,” he called, then turned and hurried over to the awnings and the low stool sitting close by Aethelfreda.
The two soldiers squared off, studying each other. Both of them were smiling and full of confidence.
With a snarl, Gethin brought his sword up in a scything motion, trying to catch Wilheard off guard. Their blades clashed with a ring of metal, loud and shocking. For a moment they stood with blades together, assessing each other.
Then the fight began in earnest.
The crowd was unnaturally subdued. This was all so new to them that it did not occur to them that they could call out encouragement to their champion, or insults to the opponent. Instead, they were watching every move, assessing strengths and weaknesses.
Wilheard tripped Gethin with a two-footed jump forward, swinging his sword in a low, flat arc. Gethin leapt back out of the way before the blade cut him off at the ankles. He was forced to move so swiftly he couldn’t keep his balance. He staggered back, then fell onto his ass, his sword clattering on the stones.
Wilheard lunged forward and brought his weapon up to strike as Gethin scrabbled for his sword. Wilheard’s sword point entered into the back of Gethin’s shoulder as he turned to spot his own sword and he cried out, arching backward.
“Halt!” Wulfstan cried, lurching to his feet. He ducked under the barrier and strode out into the middle of the arena. “Gethin has fallen and cannot rise again. This match is declared for Mercia!”
Several of Gethin’s comrades hurried out to help him get to his feet, while Wilheard held his arms out, welcoming the applause of the crowd, as they cheered and clapped. The Powys side of the arena was quiet.
Llewelyn shifted on his chair, also silent.
Aethelfreda glanced at him. “It was an even match,” she observed. “Until the end,” she added with a small smile.
“Such luck can fall upon either side,” Llewelyn replied stiffly.
“We shall see.”
Wulfstan held up his arms again, calling for silence. “The champions for the second match present themselves now!”
From the Mercian side, a tall, thin man stepped out. He was fully armed and also had a shield on his arm. No one had thought to lay down rules about weapons and he was taking full advantage of it.
Sydney recalled his name from the morning’s discussions. Cola was a fierce fighter. He was not strong the way Wilheard was, but he was canny and smart on his feet. That showed by the way he had thought to bring a shield to his match. While Wilheard could fight all day and still spare air to laugh, Cola could end a fight quickly by measuring a man and exploiting his weaknesses.
There was a murmur of approval from the watching Mercians. Someone from Powys jeered. “He needs a shield to hold him down!”
There was a laugh around him.
“Cola! Cola!” someone cried on the other side.
Then the Powys champion stepped over the barricade and strode into the arena. He was a giant, with close-set eyes and a forehead that jutted over them. He looked mean. And powerful. Sydney recognized him as the Powys fighter who had sliced her arm open, the one from whom Rafe had tried to protect her.
“Tegid! Tegid!” a Powys man cried, imitating the first cheer.
Suddenly, everyone around the arena was shouting insults and encouragement, clapping and cheering. Some of the townsfolk were bouncing on their toes with excitement, waving and clapping as they smiled.
“If nothing else, my people will remember this day as entertaining, at least,” Aethelfreda said, studying the spectators.
“That may be the only happy memory they have of the day,” Llewelyn told her. “Tegid is my best fighter.”
“You did not save him for last?” she replied coolly.
Llewelyn did not reply, although Sydney understood his reasoning without explanation. If Powys had won the first match, then he would want his strongest fighter for the second, to ensure the victory for the day. If they lost, then he would want a strong fighter in the second match to at least even the score.
Which meant he had a strategy for the third match, too, one he had hoped he wouldn’t have to use, if he was gambling everything on this second match. Except that now he would be forced to use that gambit, if Powys won this match.
Wulfstan ordered the two fighters to begin and hurried behind the barrier once more.
Tegid and Cola circled each other, taking their measure. Neither of them smiled.
“You need more than a shield against me,” Tegid said, in heavily accented English.
Cola didn’t answer. He just kept circling, making no move to attack. Sydney knew he was trying to make Tegid commit to attack, so that he could defend and estimate his strength and skill at the same time. If Cola really was a master at spotting weaknesses, then it was the perfect opening move.
Tegid gave a roar and threw himself forward, his sword and knife swinging in big, ungainly but powerful arcs.
Cola stepped aside, actually presenting his bare back for a moment, as he spun. He dropped the shield so that it was horizontal to the ground and kept spinning around. His momentum sent the edge of the shield deep into Tegid’s belly, which the bigger man had exposed by moving into Cola’s circle.
Then Cola was spinning and moving away, light on his feet and the shield back up to protect him.
Tegid bent over, breathing heavily, his hand to his belly.
Llewelyn didn’t move or speak. Sydney suspected he was worried.
Then Tegid straightened again, slowly. He grinned at Cola while the Powys army screamed and clapped each other on the back, celebrating that their champion was still in the game.
“God’s teeth,” Llewelyn muttered, leaning forward to peer at the two warriors facing each other.
Sydney ran her gaze over Tegid, wondering what had alerted Llewelyn. Then she saw the dark patch staining the leather of Tegid’s mail jerkin, down by the belly, around where Cola had hit him with the shield.
The shield was blunt and while it might have bruised Tegid’s belly, it could not have bitten into the flesh and torn it, not through the mail. The memory of her confrontation with the giant flashed through her mind. The hot slice across her arm. The feel of her own sword being snagged on something as she tried to turn and run as Rafe had advised her to.
She must have wounded Tegid, too. Low down on his belly like that would be about where she had swung her sword in a blind and futile attempt to fend off his attack as she turned to escape.
Cola must have seen something in the way Tegid has been moving that hinted at a previous injury and he had gone straight for it, hoping to cripple Tegid or at least weaken him.
However, Tegid was smiling despite the blood spreading across his mail. Perhaps Cola hadn’t weakened him as much as he’d hoped.
The spectators were going crazy now, screaming encouragement to their respective champions.
The fight continued, with Cola attacking in quick flurries and feints, his feet moving swiftly. He stayed out of Tegid’s reach and kept up the pressure, making him defend and fall back, only to defend again. Tegid was being pressed close to the barriers. If he was caught with one at his back he would be forced to attack.
Cola must have sensed that he could end the match quickly that way, because he came closer, his sword slashing, driving Tegid back another two staggering steps. The crowd ‘ooohed’ as Tegid held his sword up as a shield as Cola hacked at it over and over.
When his back touched one of the barrels, Tegid gave a mighty roar and lurched forward. His footwork was nowhere as neat as Cola’s. He used his body as a battering ram, put his head down and ran at Cola, his sword up high for a downward stroke.
Cola was surprised by the spirited comeback. He stepped back, bringing his own sword up to block the high guard blow that Tegid was clearly planning to deliver.
That was when Tegid dropped the knife in his left hand and punched Cola in the jaw, in a hard uppercut that connected solidly with the underside of his chin and lifted him right off his feet.
Cola landed heavily on the flat on his back and lay still. His shield rolled on its rim in a lazy half circle, then clattered to the ground, too.
For a few heart beats, the crowd held a shocked silence.
Then they went mad. The noise was deafening as they screamed themselves hoarse, expressing their amazement and their excitement. Sydney watched them pound each other on the back and the arms, venting their enthusiasm.
Powys and Mercia were one for one. The next and final match would decide the outcome.
As a dozen or more Powys fighters raced into the arena to help their champion limp away, Wulfstan moved to the middle of the arena and held up his arms for silence so that he could speak.
And still the crowd cheered and taunted and yelled.
Wulfstan stood with his arms raised, waiting for them to contain themselves. The noise was so ferocious there was no point in him trying to shout over the top of them. He would not be heard.
After a long minute, the volume slackened. Slowly, silence gripped the square. It was tense with anticipation, the air thrumming with it.
Sydney remembered to breathe. It was hard not to get caught up in the drama of it all. Alex’s idea really was going to work. If even she, who had experienced more vicarious blood and violence via Hollywood than any of these simple folk, could also be held in thrall by the spectacle then it was working far better than even Alex had hoped for.
When the noise had abated to a tense murmur, Wulfstan said simply, “The champions for the third and last match will now present themselves.”
The silence held while the crowd waited anxiously to see who the two contestants would be in the third match.
Someone was making their way through the tightly gathered Powys fighters on the other side of the arena, coming not from the left but from the top of the square where the road to the main gates started.
The soldiers separated, making way for the third champion.
It was Alex.
Sydney’s heart squeezed and her belly crawled as she watched him duck under the raised barrier and walk into the arena. He was wearing a knee length mail jerkin just like the other Powys fighters and there was a sword strapped to his hip. His knife was thrust into the belt on the other side. Long gloves protected his hands and wrists.
The warrior garb looked completely natural on him, as if he’d had lots of practice putting it on and wearing it.
And he had. Sydney remembered that he had fought his way through two crusades, not counting the one where he met Brody and Veris. He had been a warrior even before he had become a doctor.
Yet no one here knew that.
“The physician?” Aethelfreda asked, sounding as confused as Sydney did. “What foolery is this?” she demanded of Llewelyn as Alex walked into the center of the arena and bowed low toward them both.
Llewelyn just smiled. “Your champion, my Lady?” he asked politely.
Aethelfreda looked down at her knees, a deep frown marring her forehead.. Then she turned on her chair and looked at Sydney. “Go and deal with this…this warrior!” Her tone was withering.
Sydney could feel her heart thudding in her throat and hear it in her ears. The beating drowned normal sounds. She could barely breathe. “Eadric…” She struggled to speak above a whisper. Eadric was supposed to be the third champion and he was Wulfstan’s most able soldier.
Aethelfreda shook her head almost violently. “They laugh at us by fielding a man of letters, who can barely hold a sword. We will show them our might by having a mere girl crush him. You. Get out there and finish this off!”