HISTORY DOESN’T TELL US HOW JOAN OF ARC FELT AS SHE sat on her horse, eyeing the besieged town of Orleans, planning her first military mission. Did her mind drift back to her village and the girl she was before the visions? Was there someone she loved before God told her to lead the French to victory against the English? (Which is a very Franco-centric view from God, if you ask me.) But really, who was Joan? Mystic? Mad? Fiercely brave? Or just the right girl for the job at perhaps the wrong time?
Maybe her stomach turned like mine was doing and her armor pinched her elbows and sweat ran in a sticky thread down her back, soaking her shirt.
“Right girl for the job,” I whisper to myself, tightening my grip on the lance. “Right girl for the job.”
“GIVE A CASTLE-WORTHY CHEER FOR YOUR CHAMPION, THE RED KNIGHT!”
Our MC sounds more like a Wrestle Mania announcer than usual tonight, but his words wipe all fear from my brain. I kick my heels into Shadowfax and pound through the arena tunnel. Bright lights and loud cheers greet me. Beneath the purple stage lights and the mist that smells vaguely like mildew, the faces of the crowd blur. Another trumpet blast sounds, and I glance over my shoulder. Jett stands on the royal platform, looking glorious and much more majestic than beer-bellied King Len next to him.
Kit!
Focus.
Time to ride. Not time to think about the way Jett’s eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles.
KIT!
I dig my knees into Shadowfax and we pound across the pitch.
The first pass is easy. Once around the arena, hands on the reins, head up. I stop in front of the red cheering section and stand in my stirrups. I wave and bow toward the king. The crowd erupts in cheers from my section and boos from the others. In the front row, Layla turns for a moment, her arms laden with a drink tray and basket of rolls. She gives me the smallest of waves, but there’s no time to acknowledge it because a horn sounds.
The MC announces the Blue Knight, and I turn away from the crowd and focus on the game at hand. Chris and the Knights make it look so easy every shift. And afterward, they laugh with each other as they talk about who cruised a cute boy or girl in the crowd, who managed to maintain the best posture while on horse, whose section cheered the loudest.
But that’s hours and several battles away. Right now, all I know is I really should have peed before agreeing to this.
Even that thought disappears as the horns sound again and the Knights gallop in a circle around the arena. So much of this job is showmanship… . I dig my heels into Shadowfax, and together we move toward the rings that hang in the middle of the oval arena.
The task is simple: lower my lance, put it through a hoop, and then retreat to the Red Knight’s part of the crowd.
I miss the first one.
Which is something my brother would never do. My section groans loudly, and I bite my bottom lip as I ride. The warm, metallic taste of blood rises in my mouth.
Dalton hits two in a row on the same pass, and he makes a point to gallop past me on the way to his own section. “Can’t see out of that black eye?”
I want to flip him off, but instead I ignore him, kick my heels into Shadowfax, and head back for another pass. My shoulders ache as I steady the lance, but I imagine Joan, waving her sword and calling soldiers to arms. I think of Chris, watching in the audience, exhausted and proud all at once. I remember myself at seven and the tiny girl I met in the Great Hall.
This is for you all.
I pinch my thighs together and drive Shadowfax forward. One ring clatters onto my lance and then the second one slips on easily.
I want to punch the air and cheer, but that’s not what Knights do. Instead, I ride back to my section and drop the rings into my Squire’s hands. A quick glance at the crowd shows me Chris, way up at the top of my section, standing behind Eddy Jackson and his buddies, all of them waving red banners. Even though Chris can’t see it, I wink at him.
I’ve got this.
The tournament goes on. We race each other up and down the arena, horses kicking up sand and the crowd cheering. Although I have to stay alert, some part of me is on autopilot, outside my body, going through the motions. Sweat pools in my helmet and streams down my back. This is every-Knight-for-themselves, and the races aren’t scripted. The Blue Knight wins most of them, soundly trouncing Green, Yellow, and me.
We take a small break, and I grin to see Eric Taylor rushing out with the other Squires to clean up the horse poop that’s scattered about the sand of the arena. They use long rakes, which look almost exactly like what you’d use to clean a cat’s litter box, and I secretly hope that Layla’s reconsidering her opinion of Eric while she watches him work his pooper scooper.
By the end of the races, it’s time to get favors from the Princess to throw into the audience. My thighs ache from holding myself upright in the saddle, and my back and arms scream at me. Although I’ve trained, I’ve never gone through an entire show. And we’re only halfway there.
“Medieval warrior women, give me strength,” I mutter, thinking of all the female warriors I’ve read about as I researched what the Middle Ages were really like. If they could fight like this in real life, I can stay on my horse for another thirty minutes for the sake of a show.
I ride up to the King’s Platform. Princess Jessica, most treacherous of them all, stands at the edge, throwing fake flowers to each of the Knights. She doesn’t look at me as a white carnation drops from her hand. For the sake of the show, she can’t ignore Chris (well, me) entirely, but she doesn’t have to smile at him. I reach up a spent arm and grab at the flower. It almost—almost—slips through my fingers, but I snatch it out of the air at the last second and turn Shadowfax’s reins. With a quick sprint back to my section, I fling the flower into the audience. Then, I join the line of other Knights galloping back to the royal box. This time, Jessica slips colored scarves tied to rings onto the edge of each Knight’s lance. When I approach her, lance held straight, she deliberately misses and the scarf flutters toward the ground.
I swear, more loudly than I mean to, and fumble for the scarf, nearly dropping my lance in the process. Mercifully, I hang on to it, but this sloppiness is the last thing the Red Knight would do.
Jessica’s already turned away from me, but Jett stands at the edge of the royal box. His mouth drops open when he sees me fumble and hears me swear. “Kit?” he mouths.
Our eyes meet and I give him the smallest of nods. He smiles and glances quickly at King Len.
“Rock star,” Jett mouths, before putting his trumpet back to his lips.
Buoyed by his confidence, I readjust the lance and race back to my section, the scarf waving from my hand. I fling it into the audience and a young boy in the front row catches it. He waves at me, grinning. I smile, confident again.
There’s not time to really do more than smile, though, because the trumpets sound again and it’s time to joust.
HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT JOUSTING?
It’s basically the medieval version of chicken, but with ten-foot wooden sticks pointed at the other person. And, rather than swerving away at the last moment, you have to just sit there and take it.
It’s stupid, brutal, and jolly good entertainment, both five hundred years ago and today.
The Yellow and Blue Knights race toward each other, and then there’s a hollow, thunking, splintering noise as Yellow’s lance shatters into Blue’s shield. Blue fake falls off his horse and they take the combat to the ground. Dodging, weaving, swords crashing—this is what the crowd is here for!
Blue topples Yellow—as he’s supposed to according to the script—and their hand-to-hand fighting ends with Blue’s sword balanced on the edge of Yellow’s throat. They grin at each other, and then Yellow rolls away. Together, they bow to the audience quickly, and then it’s my turn. Green is supposed to win tonight, which means I need to unseat Green on his horse and then let him beat me in the floor combat.
Except that’s not what’s going to happen today.
I can tell from the first pass, Dalton is still pissed about his fight with Chris. Right before our lances meet, I straighten my back and steel myself. He’s supposed to pull back on his lance, so it just barely glances against my shield. But, instead, he drives his arm forward, ramming the lance into my shield. I dig my heels into my horse to steady myself as my shield shatters and I nearly fall off.
I can’t help it; a scream breaks out of me as I turn my horse around. Luckily, it’s lost in the roar of the crowd. Green stands up in his stirrups and raises his arms to the crowd. They shriek approval as he parades around.
I grit my teeth and trade my lance for a sword and a new shield.
The choreography of this fight is meant to be simple: Green falls off his horse as we ride past, and then I jump down to the ground to face him in the sand. The Castle has been doing this same show for three years now, and I’ve seen it twice a night, four nights a week, for all of those years. That’s 1,248 shows, and each time the same thing happens—the last two Knights duke it out with swords, maces, and spears until the Knight of the Night (if you will) emerges triumphant.
But Green is out for blood tonight.
On the next pass, he dodges my blow, jumps from his horse, and knocks me down. While I’m on the ground, he advances, raining blows on me. I hold up my shield, arm aching, as he batters it with his sword. I roll out of the way, dropping my shield as I do so, and dance away from him. Inside my helmet, sweat stings my eyes.
My Squire hands me a mace—really just a prop made of balsa wood and aluminum, nothing like its hardier iron cousin, which could do real damage.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asks, nodding at Green. “Did he do coke before the show or something?”
“Just Dalton being his usual self,” I say in as Chris-like a voice as possible.
Before I can turn around, Green swipes my legs out from under me. My Squire jumps out of the way, and as I try to get to my feet, Green whacks me on the shoulder with his shield—totally illegal, off-script move—and pain shoots down my side.
From the stands, I hear Chris yelling, “Cheater!”
The crowd is half boos and half cheers, and I can’t tell if they’re on my side or not. But I don’t care. In acting there are cues and maybe a bit of improvisation. But, in a fight, there’s only action and reaction. And I’m done just reacting.
My shoulder throbs as I skitter out of Green’s path and swing the mace at him. He’s supposed to block it with his sword, but I aim lower, winging the end of it between his legs. It’s a dirty move, but certainly one a medieval warrior, desperate for any advantage, would’ve used. I make certain to cover the move with my shield as I do it, however, so the audience just sees the mace hit Dalton’s leg, and then his fall.
With a cry of pain, Dalton crumbles, clutching his groin. His sword falls out of his hand and then he flops onto his back.
I step a booted foot onto his chest and raise my arms. Triumph.
The crowd goes wild, and I turn to the royal box. Len’s mouth hangs open, and he knows something is wrong.
We. Don’t. Go. Off. Script.
It’s rule number one at the Castle.
But I’ve broken like a hundred others tonight, so why not one more?
The MC tries to bring things back. “AND SO IT SEEMS THAT THE BEST MAN WON TONIGHT!”
I remove my foot from the Green Knight and stride toward the royal box. In that moment, I’m Éowyn in The Lord of the Rings as she faced the King of the Ringwraiths. I tear the helmet from my head. My hair’s probably standing up in every direction, but I don’t care. I grin and raise my arms.
“I AM NO MAN!” I yell. It’s my favorite line in all of The Lord of the Rings, and I deliver it perfectly.
In the royal box, Jessica scowls, Len’s mouth is a thin line of fury, and Jett’s dropped all pretense of staying in character and is clapping for me.
“Get it, KIT!” he yells.
The MC stammers, his usual narration cut short by what’s happened. But, professional that he is, he picks right back up. “LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, MAY I PRESENT OUR VERY FIRST EVER FEMALE KNIGHT, KIT OF THE CASTLE!”
I bow to the King and then to the crowd. They’re stunned at first and then a loud hoot splits the arena. Layla rescues me with her classic ear-shattering whistle, the one she perfected when we were kids.
As if awakened from a spell, the crowd loses it. They’re on their feet, stomping, cheering, and throwing their colorful scarves and cheering cloths into the arena. Eddy Jackson and his buddies are whooping and raising their pitchers of beer in my direction.
Dalton’s gotten to his feet and he stands with Eric, his Squire, shooting me death looks. I want to stay there and bask in the crowd’s praise, but Len looks like he’s ready to fire me then and there. I grab Shadowfax’s reins from my Squire and swing myself into the saddle. With one last wave and a bow, I gallop out of the arena.
CHRIS WAITS FOR ME BACKSTAGE, A TAKEOUT CONTAINER IN his hands and a grin on his face. There’s a roar from the arena signaling that more of the Knights have appeared to finish up the show.
I slide off Shadowfax as a groom takes the reins. Adrenaline pumps through me. I want to dance and barf at the same time.
“That was amazing!” I say, gripping Chris’s arms. “You never told me how FUN it is to be out there. Or how good the crowd feels!”
He grins at me ruefully. “You were supposed to leave your helmet on.”
“I couldn’t help it!” I fling a hand across my heart. “Éowyn called! I mean, that setup was perfection!”
“You are such a dork,” says Chris affectionately. The last notes of the show play, and then there’s a loud bunch of applause. Chris steers me out of the stables and toward the back door. “I’ll go get your stuff out of your locker; you go to the car. I’ll deal with Len once I drop you off at home.” He plops his keys on top of the takeout container.
“But I’m supposed to meet Jett,” I say, peering over his head. Two Serving Wenches—Lizzy and Mags—walk past us lugging tubs full of dirty plates.
“Nice one, Kit!” says Lizzy. She’s a tall, pretty white girl who plays volleyball and just got voted “Most Likely to Dress like a Librarian for the Rest of her Life” in our senior class. Quiet and bookish in real life, when she’s at the Castle, she trades her cardigans and patterned dresses for a low-cut Wench dress that hugs her curves.
“Epic,” Mags nods, giving me a high five as she walks past. Mags’s parents are from China, and she’s got short black hair and dark eyes. Her piercings and tattoos (which she started getting the minute she turned eighteen) are never covered, as they should be under company policy. “Are you going to be out there every show?”
“I wish,” I say.
“Well, if you figure it out, let me know. I’ve always wanted to fight as a Knight!”
Before I can reply to her, Chris opens the back door.
“Go,” he hisses. “Before anyone else sees you.”
Waving to Mags and Lizzy, I stumble outside, stunned for a moment by the contrast between the loud, smelly Castle and the warm spring night. The moon rises beyond the office buildings in the east, pale yellow, like the moonfaced girls who were so popular in the Middle Ages. When I get to Chris’s car, an ancient tan Volvo that was old when our mom bought it fifteen years ago, I consider myself in the reflection on the window.
Hero? Loser? Knight? My face is sharp and chicken pox scars remain on my long nose. “Striking” is what my grandmother used to say, but that was just polite.
Exhaustion hits me and I have no more time to contemplate my stupid face. As I drop into the passenger seat, my adrenaline crashes. I think of only one thing: Have I just gotten myself fired?