When Viv stumbled out of the tent in her rumpled princess dress, squinting and rubbing her head, she was at least glad to see she wasn’t the only one nursing a hangover. The camp was pretty subdued, with most people sitting around chatting softly or just staring into their mugs. “Is there coffee?” she asked weakly.
“Only tea,” said Noah. He looked pretty rough around the edges too, with his cracked glasses and his riotous curly hair. Looking at him made Viv remember to run her fingers through her own tangled mop.
“I’ll take the tea,” she said, swallowing a wave of grumpiness. At home she would have had coffee.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he deftly unhooked a kettle from over the campfire.
The grumpiness rose up again and leaked out in her voice. “Pretty much like I look, I’m sure.”
Noah gave her a sympathetic look that only made her feel more irritable. “I had a talk with Tim about plying civilians with moonshine.”
“Sorry,” Tim piped up sheepishly from a few feet away. “I should have warned you that the mead packs a big kick. I forget not everybody has a brewer’s tolerance.”
“Hey,” Viv snapped, “I’m not a civilian, I’m a Swede. I can handle my drink.”
Nobody said anything to that, leaving her to stand around until Noah quietly handed her a steaming mug of tea. She applied herself to the task of drinking it, small sip by small sip (it tasted like wet grass, but that was still better than the taste in her mouth), until she found herself fortified enough to say, grudgingly, “Thanks for putting me to bed last night though.”
Noah made a don’t-mention-it hand wave. Viv drained the rest of the mug, and went off to the bathrooms to brush her hair and teeth. There wasn’t much to be done about the dress: it was stained and rumpled, and she was pretty sure politeness would require her to get it dry-cleaned before returning it to Bree. Also, she remembered, she was supposed to fight today. She felt at once supremely annoyed and obscurely cheered by the prospect.
The camp didn’t really get moving until after lunch: sandwiches again, although everybody ate them open-faced and called them “trenchers.” Viv guessed that made them more medieval. There were no Cokes. Viv wanted very much to check her e-mail and her voicemail, but her cellphone (which she’d smuggled in) couldn’t get a signal.
Viv’s head felt better, but her mood wasn’t improving. She wandered around and looked at all the things she’d already looked at. While she was pretending to browse a stall of leather mugs the proprietor tried to kiss her hand, and she had to yank it away when he started Frenching her wrist. “Good day, sirrah!” she said loudly, and stomped off in a swirl of pink skirts.
She swished back to camp and flung herself down next to Noah. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve been looking—”
“The Middle Ages,” she broke in, “sucked. Either you were breaking your backs in the fields, or you were getting drunk, or you were just sitting around bored off your ass. No wonder all the women got so much needlepoint done. There’s nothing else to do!”
“Do you want to bash somebody repeatedly with a sword?” he asked mildly.
“Yes,” she said decidedly. “I’d like that.”
“Good. It’s time we got you ready.”
There was a new kit for her to wear: a leather tunic, thankfully cut for a girl, and a pair of Noah’s breeches that would have been impossibly long, except that he gave her two strips of leather for tying them up at the knees. When she came out, feeling like a child playing at dress-up, he merely nodded and told her to stand with her arms outstretched. She did the scarecrow act while Noah and Rob strapped bits of homemade armor to her. There was a lot of fussing with buckles, and at the end of things they slid a helmet over her head and handed her a heavy rectangular piece of wood, edged with green garden hose, with two leather handles riveted to the back.
“How’s that?” Noah asked.
“Well, I can’t see, and I have no idea what to do with this shield. I use Excalibur two-handed.”
“You still have that sword the crazy lady gave you?” Rob asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Noah jumped in, “but I’ve explained to her that we don’t use real swords to fight.”
“That’s cool,” Rob said, at the same time Viv asked: “So what will I be using?”
“A normal practice stick,” Noah said, handing her one of their mock-swords. This one, she noted, was a little nicer than the other ones she’d seen: it looked like it was made from bamboo, rather than a broom handle wrapped in layers of duct tape. “You can use it two-handed too, but I really think you’ll want the shield, especially against Orion of Briony.”
“Okay,” she said, hefting the shield dubiously. “What do I do with it?”
“Put it between yourself and anybody swinging heavy things at you,” Rob answered, with a laugh in his voice.
“Oh, gee, thanks.”
“It’s really not much more complicated than that,” Noah said. “Put your left arm through the first strap and grab the second one in your fist. You’ll want to keep that fist over your collarbone, and keep your elbow tucked tight to your body so there’s no gap between your shield and you. There you go.” He stepped back, and she saw both him and Rob frowning at her.
“What?”
“It’s not perfectly balanced to you,” Noah admitted. “The angle’s a little off. But it’ll do.”
“Don’t worry about trying to move your shield around like they do in the movies,” Rob volunteered. “Just keep it tucked up to you; keep your squishy bits covered.” At her raised eyebrow he clarified: “I mean your vital organs!”
“So will this tournament work like the quarterstaff one?”
“No,” Noah said. “This one will be a double-elimination, and shots to the head are legal. You’re kind of—”
“Shots?” Viv broke in. “To the head?”
“Blows. Blows to the head are legal. Most of the body is fair game except for the hands, the knees and the legs below the knees. If you get hit, you’re on the honor system to call it, just like we’ve been doing in practice. Except instead of just saying ‘a good blow,’ you’ll need to say ‘a killing blow’ if you get hit solidly in the head or torso. Rob here is going to show you the difference between a glancing and a killing blow.”
Rob picked up his own stick. “Ready?”
“Sure,” she said.
“Get your shield up.”
She hefted it up into the position she’d been shown. “Okay. Ready.”
He snapped the rattan stick at her, landing the blow mostly on her shield. She heard the wood thwack off the metal rivulets armoring her shoulder, but she barely felt it. “Glancing. I got it.”
“This is killing.” He swung again, this time at her sword-arm side; since her sword was still sheathed she was unprotected there, and the stick connected solidly with her ribs. If she hadn’t been armored it would have been a bruising blow. But however homemade and improvised the padding was, it did its job well; she felt the impact only as a dull thud, one that forced her to steady her footing.
“So,” Noah said. “Call it.”
“A killing blow,” she said dutifully.
“Good. Nobody else can call the blows but you, and same for ones that you land on an opponent: this is a sport of chivalry, so do your best to acknowledge blows fairly. The other rules are all sort of obvious. Don’t use excessive force—remember the ninety degree rule—obey the marshals no matter what—don’t strike a helpless opponent—and stop at once if anyone cries ‘hold.’” He looked at Rob. “Am I forgetting anything?”
“No grabbing or punching,” Rob said.
“I’m not really much of a puncher,” Viv said drily. “Hair-pulling, though...”
“Counts as grabbing,” Noah said. “Good, that’s it then, I really think we’ve covered most of it in practice. Let’s go get you authorized.”
They marched her out into the fields, where a marshal—someone she didn’t know—quizzed her on the rules and put her through her paces with the mock sword. All around her other fighters were doing the same thing. When the marshal was convinced that Viv could be trusted with her stick, he presented her with an entirely non-medieval waiver, clearing the SCA of liability in the case of her injury or death. Viv swallowed the jokes and signed her real name. Rob, it turned out, was fighting too, and had to go through exactly the same process once she was done.
Then it was mostly waiting, hanging out with Rob and Noah while the lists got organized and she started to really get the jitters. It was all fun and games, of course, but she still didn’t want to embarrass herself: she could pretty vividly imagine herself falling on her butt, and everybody laughing, except Noah who would just look pained, and maybe Arianrhod would try and act all fake-sympathetic while taking the excuse to drape herself all over him, and the whole thing would just be obnoxious and it was making her tense.
Then a shift in the air: the girls in their pretty dresses put down their needlework, and the fighters stopped talking among themselves. Three heralds with trumpets had stepped out on the fields. They blew an honest-to-goodness fanfare, and then behind them a couple in very fine clothing strolled in stately fashion toward a big pavilion on the edge of the grass. “His Highness by right of combat, Her Highness of love and beauty: The Prince and Princess of the West!” the heralds exclaimed, and everybody stood as they walked by. Their outfits were fantastic: lots of velvet and sparkly bits. Viv wondered how the Princess dealt with grass stains on her train.
Once the Prince and Princess had taken their seats, and the heralds gone through a bit more of their rigmarole, the actual fighting started. The first half hour was pretty exciting, watching guys (they were pretty much all guys) bash on each other with their sticks. But forty-five minutes in, and Viv was getting antsy. Rob and Noah kept up a running commentary on the matches, critiquing the fighters’ technique; but most people seemed to be paying only half attention to the tournament. The ladies had gone back to their stitching and the waiting fighters were pacing or slashing the air with their sticks.
“Vivian duLac of the Shire of Cloondara, to face Alfric Red-drak of the Barony of Darkwood!” The herald’s call almost didn’t register. It wasn’t her name, after all. But Noah and Rob sprang into action, picking up her shield and helmet and urging her onto the field. Rob settled the helmet on her head as Noah pressed the bamboo stick into her hand, and she lost peripheral vision: the spectators vanished, and all she saw was her opponent. He looked really big. That guy must be six feet tall! she thought in silent protest. And his armor looked a lot more professional than hers. His shield was edged with metal, for one thing, not a rubber garden hose. And the device painted on the shield matched one that had been painted or silk-screened or something onto the sleeveless shirt-thingy he wore over his armor: a surplice? Was that the word? In any case, the emblem was a red dragon, raised up on its hind legs with wings extended.
But real dragons don’t look like that, Viv thought, and a surge of confidence followed. She had fought and killed a dragon. This guy might be big, but he had no idea who he was up against.
She hefted her shield into the position she’d been shown, and moved in. Alfric came forward to meet her. He raised his mock-sword in a salute, and she imitated the gesture, flashing back to a mist-filled night and a horned rider, when the duel had not been in fun.
Perhaps that was why, when he came at her slashing his stick, she spun away so quickly and returned the strike rather viciously, aiming for his leg just above the knee. She connected solidly; his armor rang out with the blow. “A disabling blow!” Alfric called, and dropped to his knees.
Viv, confused, looked over for Noah: Disabling? But when she found his face in the crowd he screamed at her: “Watch out!” She spun back to her opponent just as his stick was whistling towards her. It caught her on the shield, hard enough that she stumbled backwards. “A glancing blow,” she remembered to say, as Alfric knee-marched towards her, clearly aiming to strike again.
“Okay,” she muttered, “this is just ridiculous.” She side-stepped around to his shield side, out of his reach—and, remembering that blows to the head were okay in this kind of fight, put the poor kneecapped Alfric out of his misery with a fairly gentle tap on the helmet.
“A killing blow,” he acknowledged, and with that it was over: her first victory in the lists, and all of the San Francisco contingent cheering wildly and waving their Cloondara banner. She rejoined them, flush with adrenalin and grinning wide.
After that she paid a little more attention to the fights. Rob won his first match too, meaning that they would both be in the second round—but not against each other, unless they proved to be the only two standing at the end.
The second round began with another fanfare. Rob was up first, and he lost, but he seemed to take it in good grace. A few more matches went by, and then: “Arianrhod of the Shire of Crosston to face Vivian duLac of the Shire of Cloondara!”
Good luck, Noah mouthed as he hoisted up her shield, over the roar of cheers from both the Cloondara and Crosston sections of the crowd. Viv nodded, pulled her helmet down, gripped her stick and shield, and took the field.
She and Arianrhod exchanged salutes: Viv could see that the other woman was grinning wolfishly behind her helmet. She was taller than Viv, with lanky limbs that Viv guessed would give her good reach. They circled: Viv launched the first shot, but it only caught Arianrhod’s shield, and she knew the other woman was right when she said: “Glancing.”
Arianrhod came back with a riposte and Viv parried with her stick. But Arianrhod was very quick, and gave Viv no time to recover before another blow came at her. Again and again Viv blocked the strikes, but each time she lost a little footing, until at the end of the flurry she did what Rob had told her not to do—she could not bring her stick around in time, so she lifted her shield arm and blocked with that.
Arianrhod’s stick clattered off the wooden shield, but now Viv was open and vulnerable, and Arianrhod knew it. Viv stepped desperately backwards, but too late: Arianrhod’s next blow caught her shield-arm on the bicep, hard enough that it smarted even through the makeshift armor. Arianrhod paused her attack, waiting expectantly.
“A—a disabling blow,” Viv admitted. She’d watched enough fights now to know what this meant. She had to pretend she’d lost use of the limb. It was completely absurd—if her arm had been really been cut off at the shoulder, wouldn’t she be rolling around on the ground screaming and spurting blood? But this was apparently how they did it. She dropped her shield and tucked the arm behind her back.
Arianrhod lifted her stick, signaling that she was ready to go on. She had the chivalry to wait until Viv raised hers before resuming the attack.
But Viv had no intention of getting overwhelmed again by Arianrhod’s offense. She yielded immediately before Arianrhod’s onslaught, pivoting left, and bringing her stick down and around in a fluid motion to catch Arianrhod on the ribs as she went by. It was the same move Excalibur had led her in when she fought the horned knight on horseback. And she connected, solidly.
Arianrhod brought her hand to her side, held it there a moment. “A killing blow,” she said, after the pause.
Cloondara went wild. Bree and Rob and Noah rushed the field, pounding her on the back. “A great match!” Rob was saying, while Noah added only: “Close one. And two more rounds to go.”
They took a break to sit and drink water while the other matches finished up. Arianrhod came by to offer her congratulations, and her smile was so friendly and genuine that Viv felt uncomfortably that she’d been unfair, somehow, to the other fighter. “Thank you,” she said, and smiled back. “I got lucky. You’re very good.”
The third round began. There was a difference in the matches now, Viv noticed, and in the way the audience related to them. The fights were longer, and people were paying more attention. Everybody tensed up when the heralds called: “Vivian duLac of the Shire of Cloondara to face Orion of Briony!”
When she went out to face him she recognized the device painted on his shield: three stars, with a crown below. Noah had warned her about this fighter particularly. He had won tournaments in the past: so he had ruled as Prince of the West. That must be why he had the right to put the crown in his heraldic symbol. His armor and helmet were burnished with a black finish. He was not a large man, but his gear looked expensive and authentic, and he moved with serene confidence.
This guy, Viv thought, is a prince of the nerds, but I bet he got beat up a lot in middle school. Also Orion is not his real name. I bet his real name is Fred. And the thought, though uncharitable, cheered her as she saluted him.
They traded blows, almost ritualistically. Orion shifted to the side and aimed a high blow at her head: she blocked it with her stick. She swung at his torso and he pivoted to catch it on his shield. He stepped in and struck at her legs: she stepped back and avoided the blow.
Fred’s putting me through my paces, she thought. Time to shake it up.
And so she did as Arianrhod had just done to her: launched a blitz attack, strike after strike after strike. She knew she was taking a gamble, but she didn’t think he’d expect it of her, and with a fighter like this one she figured the element of surprise was her best opening.
At first it seemed to be working. He backed up, barely blocking the first few shots, letting her well within his reach. She pressed the attack, but there was no time to check her footing. Her foot caught on a hillock of grass and she stumbled. She caught herself, but as she did so, a dull pain bloomed along her ribs: Orion had seized the opening and struck her solidly.
“Killing,” she gasped. “A killing blow.”
People were cheering, but not the Cloondarans. Orion pulled off his helmet and stepped close so she could hear.
“That was perhaps unchivalrous of me to take advantage,” he said. “I only did because I have seen you fight, and you are truly one to be reckoned with.”
“Thanks,” Viv managed. “No hard feelings.”
And she trudged off the field, to hand her stick back to Noah. “Sorry,” she muttered, staring at the grass. So she wasn’t at all prepared when he threw his arms around her and lifted her, armor notwithstanding, to spin her in a half circle. Behind him the Cloondara people were clustering, slapping her arms and back, offering words of praise: “Hey, Viv! Way to go!” “Nice fighting, Viv!” “Congratulations, Viveka!”
Noah set her on her feet, but she still wasn’t sure of the ground beneath her. “You people,” she managed, “you understand that I just lost, right?”
Noah grinned at her behind his cracked glasses. “You made it to the third round! You lost to Orion of Briony, and you almost had him, too. You did very well for Cloondara today!”
“You guys are nuts,” was Viv’s verdict, but she couldn’t deliver it without smiling.
They stayed to watch the end of the tourney. Orion won, which salved Viv’s pride a bit: if she had to lose, at least she’d lost to the best. Then, as the setting sun bathed the skies in color, they had a coronation ceremony. The outgoing Prince set his crown on Orion’s head, and Orion named his own consort the next Princess of Love and Beauty. It was oddly touching to Viv—not so much the ritual itself, as the way everybody obviously cared: the deference and the respect that they showed to their made-up Prince and Princess.
The first bonfires were lit as twilight took the field. Dinner was more cold cuts, but the brewers were rolling out their kegs so Viv couldn’t complain. She was starting to feel aches and bruises where the day’s blows had landed, and she was looking forward to a warrior’s just rewards.
Noah took her arm. “There’s more dancing tonight,” he said. “Do you want to?”
She smiled at him. “It’s nice of you to offer, but I’m feeling pretty stiff. You go on.”
He shrugged. “We could just watch.”
“All right,” she said, and let Tim the Brewer pour her a few fingers-breadth of what he said was dandelion wine. Then she followed Noah to the edge of the fires’ light.
They watched the dancers moving in complicated patterns, the girls’ bright silk gowns catching the fire and reflecting it on, shining for an instant before they passed into shadow. Viv sipped her wine carefully, not wanting another hangover. At length Noah said: “So. How are you doing?”
“I’m having fun,” Viv said. “Even losing, it was kind of fun. Not that I would want to do this every weekend!”
“No,” Noah said, “I mean—how are you doing? Generally. With everything.”
“Oh,” she said, and took a bigger gulp of wine. “Okay, I guess. It’s just—it’s been a lot, you know? This whole thing. I was game for it at first. It was even fun, being the Lady of the Lake, being special. But I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been beat up one too many times. It’s not fun anymore.” She paused, watching the dancers and the flickering firelight. “I don’t know that I want to keep doing this,” she admitted at last.
“Yeah,” said Noah gently. “I see that. But it’s not just about what you want, is it? Why do you think the sword chose you?”
Viveka sat, stricken. “I honestly never stopped to wonder.”
“Well, I have,” Noah said. “And it isn’t because you’re the greatest sword-fighter in the Bay Area. I mean, you’re good, but you’re not amazing.”
“As we’ve just established.”
“So it must be something else about you. Your bravery, your intelligence...”
“That’s awfully nice of you to say.” She took another swig of wine. “No, the thing is, I’m not that smart. I mean, I am smart, I’m just not that smart. It became pretty clear to me in college that while I’m plenty bright, there are still lots of people in the world smarter than me. You’re probably smarter than me, Noah.” She took a deep breath. “And I’m not that brave either. I’ve been kind of shirking my duty—if this is a duty—Yeah. I guess it’s a duty. I’ve been shirking a lot lately. Because I’m scared.”
“But lots of people wouldn’t even do as much as you’ve done,” Noah said gravely. “You know, when I started to really believe that you had Excalibur, I asked myself: why not me?”
Viv looked over at him, with nothing to say, and only waited.
“I’ve watched you,” Noah said simply, “and I think I understand. I think you are very brave; maybe not the bravest, but I think it still matters. I think in a lot of areas you are strong: not the strongest in the world at any one thing, but strong in a lot of different ways, and all those ways are important. But, you know, if I had to pick one thing about you: it’s that you are open.” He struggled, casting about for words. “Not closed-off. Do you know what I mean? You’re friendly to people, you connect easily, you honestly care about them, you try new things, you go to new places: you’re open. I think maybe that’s what allowed the sword to connect with you.”
“That’s really nice, but it doesn’t sound very swordly,” Viv objected. “Shouldn’t it be looking for someone, I don’t know, hard and sharp?”
“No,” Noah said decisively. “That wouldn’t work. I mean, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure. It’s why the sword always goes for a woman, it’s why the sword is tied to a lake. It needs someone receptive and fluid and feminine to be the wielder. Hard to hard doesn’t work, sharp to sharp doesn’t work. The important thing about you is that you’re wide open, like water, like a lake.”
Viv turned her mug around in her hand. “I never particularly thought about myself that way.”
“Well,” Noah shrugged. “I could be wrong. But I’m a herald; I know my symbolism. I just think you should keep trusting yourself, and Excalibur. I think you should stay open to what it has to show you. Because the job is important, and I don’t think that just anybody could do it.”
She looked out, brow furrowed, into darkness. From somewhere beneath them music drifted up, and laughter. “You’re usually right,” she admitted. “I’m sorry if I’ve taken you for granted.”
But that was the wrong thing to say, apparently, because Noah stood abruptly. “I’m going to go down,” he said. “Maybe dance. I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah,” Viv echoed. “See you later.” And she sat alone on the grass hillside until her mug was empty.