The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [190]
“Your Grace.” Sligyn suddenly found it hard to speak. “Your Grace.”
“Don’t kneel!” Rhodry grabbed his arm just in time. “Blaen’s keeping them distracted, and they haven’t seen me yet.”
“Right. Of course. Eh!” Sligyn grabbed a damp rag, blew his nose hard, and wiped his eyes on his shirt-sleeve before going on. “This’ll show the bastards, eh? What comes of all their cursed plotting and scheming.”
Since Blaen’s men all descended upon the food and drink at once and distracted everyone, no one did notice Rhodry, who kept well back in the trees among Sligyn and Peredyr’s riders. When the judges called for the contestants, Sligyn walked at the head of his pack with Rhodry in their midst. Gwarryc was already there, pacing back and forth at his end of the field. As Sligyn went toward his end, the judges came forward to inspect his sword and shield as the rules required. Sligyn handed them over with a little bow.
“My lords, someone else will be taking my place. I was only fighting as his champion, a thing you all know blasted well, whether your ugly weaseling hearts would admit it or not, and well, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, here he is.”
The judges turned dead-white as Rhodry shoved his way through the pack and stepped up beside Sligyn to take the blunt sword and shield. He’d thrown off the cloak to reveal a shirt encrusted with embroidered dragons and interlace, and brigga in the blue-green-and-silver plaid of Aberwyn. Down at his end of the ground, Gwarryc paced in happy ignorance until Rhodry strode onto the field. There was a moment’s silence; then a mutter, a roar, of whispers, then talk, and finally cheers from Rhodry’s loyal men and from the prudent among his enemies, just as when a farmer’s earthen dam begins to crumble, with the water trickling through, until the flood bursts out at last and comes roaring down the streambed. Sligyn had a brief moment’s admiration for Gwarryc. With a proud toss of his head the lord strode to meet his enemy and saluted him with the blunt sword. The talk and the cheers died.
“Your Grace,” Gwarryc said. “Do you want to replace these with real steel?”
“I don’t, because you’ve done me no harm—not enough to warrant your death.” Rhodry brought his own blade up in salute. “And lest you think I’m only boasting, let’s have our contest, shall we?”
Deliberately and insolently Rhodry turned his back on the lord and strode off to his end of the contest ground, leaving Gwarryc with no choice but to do the same or be thought a coward forever. Licking nervous lips, the judges hovered, glancing at one another, until Sligyn could stand it no longer.
“Well, begin, for the sake of the gods! Don’t just stand there sniveling, eh? Begin!”
As the two combatants started walking toward the center, the crowd pressed close, sighing a little. Dropped to a fighting crouch, Gwarryc moved cautiously as he circled, but, even though his sword was at the ready, Rhodry merely turned in place to face him. Gwarryc hesitated briefly, then feinted to one side, back again, and in with a smart slap of his blade. Rhodry didn’t dodge so much as step away, smoothly, almost languidly. When Gwarryc spun round and charged, Rhodry was gone again, angling a few yards down the field and grinning when Gwarryc ran right past. Although he could easily have scored three touches and ended the match right there, he waited until Gwarryc caught his mistake and turned back. Like a fool Gwarryc went after him and repeated the whole little farce. By then the crowd was snickering.
“Curse you!” Gwarryc snarled. “Stand and fight!”
“Very well. Here I am.”
Rhodry lowered the point of his sword till it trailed lazily on the grass, tossed his shield some ten feet away, and smiled at him. Gwarryc looked this way and that with the scowl of a man who realizes he’s been set up as the butt of a joke just when there’s no