“But you’ve beaten Sir Ralph. You’ve already saved me from him. Maybe... maybe it’s better if Sir Gawain vanishes into the mystery whence he came.” Isobelle’s hand slid lightly to her shoulder, her palm moving slowly, caressing the place where, beneath the fabric of Gwen’s dress and the strapping Olivia had done, the bruises were darkest.
Gwen swallowed hard, aware she had a limited window of time to get to Sir Gawain’s changing tent and lay low to avoid anyone making the connection between Lady Céline’s arrival and Sir Gawain’s emergence. But... it felt like it had been weeks, rather than days, since she’d felt Isobelle lean into her this way.
“I want to do this.” Gwen caught Isobelle’s eyes and held them. “Ralph might have been the worst of them, but do you want to marry Makarios instead? Belmar?Orson?” Gwen let her breath out shakily. “I could throttle Olivia for letting you see my bruises.”
“I’m glad she did!” Isobelle burst out. “Gwen, you could’ve been killed.”
“That’s what jousting is!” Gwen shot back, then swallowed and touched Isobelle’s cheek, trying to be reassuring. “I promise you, the other knights are as bruised as I am. And I’ve been trainingwith Dupont, I know more about evasion now. Isobelle... you can’t have it both ways.” Gwen brushed Isobelle’s quivering lips with her thumb. “I’m either your knight, or I’m not. Either I stand between you and all of them, or I’m not really standing at all.”
Isobelle drew a long breath. “Just... just don’t get knocked off again,” she whispered. “That was the longest second of my life, before you hit the ground.”
“You and me both,” Gwen replied with a soft hum of laughter. “I’ll be okay, Isobelle. I will. This mad dream of yours... it’s actually working. I can do this.”
Isobelle bit her lip, her expressive face betraying how badly she wanted to keep arguing the point. Her gaze searched Gwen’s, fingers moving across the bandages under Gwen’s dress. Then she leaned in again, and captured Gwen’s lips in a kiss that was far briefer, but just as fierce as their first.
“I know you will,” Isobelle said, and let her go.
Dupont was waiting for Gwen when she ducked into Sir Gawain’s tent. If she noticed Gwen’s flushed cheeks and somewhat reddened lips, she said nothing—instead, she gestured to the armor she’d fetched and arrayed on the stand. They’d agreed it’d probably be better if Lady Céline wasn’t spotted carrying her fictitious brother’s armor, and this way, Gwen had someone to help her into it without having to wrench her shoulder.
“Remember what we practiced,” Dupont said, as she tightened the buckles at waist and wrist, and reached for Gwen’s helmet. “The lance is narrow. Dodging it takes the tiniest movement, the barest of twists—all you need to do is turn a full strike into a glancing blow to stay on your horse. It’s about timing, not strength.”
“I remember,” Gwen replied, giving an experimental twist inher armor. Olivia had been right about her ribs being bruised, not broken—with her shoulder back in place, and strapped to boot, she could move and twist with very little pain now.
Dupont stood before her, scanning Gwen’s features thoughtfully. She stood there long enough that Gwen began to fidget, shifting her weight from one booted foot to the other.
“What?” she said finally.
Dupont merely shook her head and handed Gwen the helmet. “Just enjoying what I see,” the woman said with a faint smile. “A girl who knows exactly who she is.”
Gwen’s shoulders relaxed—had she been anticipating Dupont would echo the same worries as Isobelle?—and she flashed her mentor a grin. “I’ll see you out there.”
The crowd was restless, the background din louder than usual as Gwen mounted Achilles and urged him toward the lists. She caught a glimpse of the stands, craning her neck—the entire place was packed, the crush of bodies so complete as to form an absolute wall of faces.
She gathered Achilles’s reins in one hand as the announcer stepped up—then halted as she heard the man shout, instead of her own name: “Sir Makarios of Rhodes!”
Gwen fought to catch her breath and not dwell upon the significance. They always introduced the favorite last.
“And now, the debutant from Toussaint, the knight who’s blown up overnight... Sir Gawain of...”
The crowd had begun to roar as the announcer began Gwen’s introduction, and now they were screaming so loud she couldn’t hear the rest of what the announcer was saying. Someone gestured at her, though, and she touched her heels to Achilles’s flanks, and he jolted forward.
The sheer volume of bodies and voices was like a physical force, and Gwen rode to her place in a daze—she could not quite focus on Isobelle’s box, but she saluted the ladies there with her sword, held on for dear life as Achilles reared picturesquely, enjoying the attention, and accepted the lance from one of the lance boys as she reached her spot.
The flag went down, and Achilles leapt into a run without Gwen even having to tell him to start. She lowered her lance, her first good glimpse of her opponent revealing an absolute mountain of metal thundering her way. Her grip slipped for a vital moment, and Gwen focused instead on twisting the way she’d learned from Dupont, and heard the tiny tinging scrape as the barest edge of Makarios’s lance sheared past her breastplate.
She wheeled Achilles around, catching her breath and shifting her grip on her lance. Makarios was easily twice her size, and he rode an absolute juggernaut of a warhorse. Gwen could simply try to dodge enough times to send the match to a sword fight, but she wasn’t sure how well she’d get away with that twisting maneuver a second time.
If she could knock him off balance, just the tiniest bit... his bulk would pull him right off his horse.
The flag went down a second time, and Achilles, snorting gleefully, burst into a run again. This time Gwen concentrated on the positioning of her lance, keeping it up a few inches, as if planning the same thing as last time.
At the last minute, she swung the lance down and braced herself. An absolute explosion of ringing metal and shattering wood assaulted her ears, the force of the impact of her lance sending blinding agony searing through her shoulder—but her legs hung on.
She twisted, half turning Achilles in time to see Makarios riding at a forty-five-degree angle, scrambling madly to try to pull himself up, and sliding ever lower. When he finally hit the ground, his foot still tangled in the stirrup, his massive horse dragged him some considerable distance before the beast managed to slow to a halt.
Makarios disentangled his foot and fell in a clanking heap, then sat up, yanked his helmet off, and threw it down in frustration. But then he laughed, the sound half lost in the wild screaming of the crowd, and waved a broad, exaggerated salute toward Gwen.
She drew her sword, raising it—and raising the mad shrieking of the crowd around her yet higher—and letting Achilles vent his energy by riding in a pretty half circuit of the lists.
