The final two days of your journey pass without incident. The land grows richer, the fields more manicured. You begin to see them on the road: knights in polished, gleaming armor, their squires trotting behind them, their banners snapping proudly in the breeze. They are all heading in the same direction, drawn by the promise of glory, wealth, and the Baron's favor. They are lions, peacocks, and wolves, all marching confidently towards the trap you have come to set.
Louie grows quieter, more watchful, the grim mask of the gladiator returning as he assesses the skill and bearing of every knight you pass. You remain the silent observer, a shadow in his wake.
[About 02:00 PM on Day 39]
You crest a low hill, and the fortress of Roche-sur-Yon appears before you. It is a formidable structure of sturdy grey stone, its banners whipping in the wind from the nearby sea. But the grim reality of the fortress is overshadowed by the explosion of color and life at its base. A temporary city of brightly colored pavilions and tents has sprung up on the tourney grounds. The air, thick with the salty tang of the ocean, is also heavy with the smells of roasting meat, sweat, and horseflesh. The sounds are a joyous cacophony: the ringing of a blacksmith's hammer on an anvil, the songs of minstrels, the loud boasts of knights, and the roar of a crowd from the main lists. Banners are everywhere, a forest of silk and sigils. The golden hawk of Baron Faucher is most prominent, but you also see the crests of a dozen other houses, all of them loyal to the King. This is a celebration of Royalist power, a gathering of the King's faithful.
You and Louie ride down the hill, merging into the throng of people and horses making their way towards the main gate of the tourney grounds. You pass a long line of knights waiting to register their names and titles at a herald's booth. The air is thick with testosterone and ambition. You have arrived. You are two unknown men with a single, disgraced face, riding into the heart of a lion's den you have been sent to burn down. Louie pulls his mare to a halt just inside the bustling grounds, the noise and chaos washing over you. He turns to you, his expression a calm mask that betrays none of the tension beneath.
"The lists are open for registration," he says quietly, his voice a low rumble beneath the din.
"What is our first move, Janus? Do we announce our arrival, or do we first take the measure of our opponents?"
The tourney grounds are a chaotic, vibrant sea of humanity. You and Louie dismount, handing the reins of your horses to a young squire-for-hire. The noise is a physical thing, a wall of sound made of cheers, boasts, and the clang of distant steel. Louie looks at you, his face a calm mask, but his eyes are taking in the forest of noble banners, the polished armor of the knights, and the sheer scale of the event. He is stepping back into a world that chewed him up and spat him out, but this time, he is not the same man. You meet his gaze, your own expression one of detached, analytical amusement.
"I think you should go and register," you say, your voice a low counterpoint to the surrounding din.
"You are the one thrusting lances into the other knights."
You give him a slight, almost conspiratorial nod.
"But in the meantime, I'll go examine the other horses to see if I can curse them."
A muscle in Louie's jaw tightens, the only sign that he's heard you. It is a testament to the journey you have shared that he doesn't question the statement, doesn't warn you against it. He simply gives a single, sharp nod of acknowledgement. He will do his part. You will do yours. He turns and strides with a confident, noble bearing toward the colorful pavilion where the heralds are taking registrations, a lone, disgraced lion walking into a pack of the King's wolves.
You, in turn, melt into the crowd. You are a ghost, a man with no title and no purpose, just another face in the chaos. This anonymity is your shield and your greatest weapon. You make your way towards the sprawling lines of horse paddocks, where the true wealth and power of the gathered knights are on display. The air here is thick with the scent of hay and horseflesh. Squires, their faces flushed with effort and pride, groom magnificent beasts—dappled greys, powerful destriers, and swift-looking coursers. You move down the line, a silent observer. You trail a hand along a wooden fence, your fingers brushing the flank of a large bay stallion as you pass.
A single, silent command word, "Lag" forms in your mind.
The horse shudders, its powerful muscles suddenly seeming less taut.
You move on.
Another horse, a fiery chestnut, earns a whispered syllable, "Fear" as you admire its tack.
The animal's eyes widen, and it shies away from its own groom for no apparent reason.
A touch here. A whispered word there.
You are a specter of misfortune, moving unseen through the heart of the enemy's camp, weakening their foundations before the first lance is even lifted.
You are a plague, and the sickness is spreading. You approach a truly magnificent animal, a pearl-white charger with a braided mane and armor-plated barding bearing the crest of a silver hawk. It is a beast of Silver-Tier quality, its aura a powerful thrum of vitality and strength. This is the mount of a true champion. You reach out a hand, intending to brush your fingers against its muzzle, the perfect curse ready on your tongue. The horse senses your intent and jerks its head back with a panicked snort.
"Step away from my horse."
The voice is cold steel. A hand, heavy and hard in a steel gauntlet, clamps down on your shoulder. You turn to see a knight standing over you. He is a giant of a man, even taller than Louie, his armor a polished, silvered steel that seems to gleam even in the overcast light. His tabard bears the same silver hawk as the horse's barding. His face is handsome, but etched with a cold, aristocratic arrogance. He is a Silver-Tier champion, and his aura is a blade's edge. His eyes, the color of a winter sky, are narrowed in suspicion. He felt his horse's panic, a discord in the bond they share, and he has identified you as the source.
The gauntlet on your shoulder is a cage of cold, hard steel. The knight looms over you, a mountain of polished plate and aristocratic fury. The air is thick with the scent of horseflesh and the palpable, dangerous pressure of his aura. You look from the magnificent white charger to the knight's handsome, angry face.
A slow, appreciative smile spreads across your own.
"Wow," you say, your voice bright and conversational, utterly devoid of fear.
"Handsome man, and a handsome horse."
The knight's reaction is not the weary confusion of Captain Renaud or the cold calculation of Sir Kaelen. It is pure, unadulterated contempt. The grip on your shoulder tightens, the steel plates of his gauntlet grinding together with a menacing creak. He leans in closer, his face a mask of cold arrogance.
"I am Sir Tristan de Pasteur, Knight of the Silver Hawk," he says, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
"And you are a commoner who was about to lay his filthy hands on my destrier. Your flattery is as cheap as your clothes."
He gives your shoulder a rough, dismissive shake.
"Who is your master? And what were you doing?"
His cold, winter-sky eyes bore into you. He is not asking a question. He is demanding a tribute of fear and submission, and he is fully prepared to extract it by force. The steel gauntlet on your shoulder feels like an anchor, pinning you to the spot. Sir Tristan de Pasteur, Knight of the Silver Hawk, looms over you, a monument of polished steel and aristocratic disdain. You meet his cold, suspicious gaze with an expression of open, almost rustic sincerity.
"My master is Louie de Braisechant," you state, dropping the name into the conversation with the weight of a stone.
"I don't usually see horses this fine. Usually they look like their mothers are donkeys or mules."
You give a slight, self-deprecating shrug.
"Maybe it's flattery because you see reflections of yourself and nice steeds every day, but it's not the case for me."
For a moment, Sir Tristan's expression flickers.
The backhanded compliment, wrapped in the crude language of a commoner, seems to both soothe and confirm his own arrogance.
He is handsome. His horse is magnificent. This peasant is simply stating facts.
But then the name you spoke fully registers, and the flicker of vanity is instantly extinguished by a wave of cold, venomous contempt.
"Braisechant," he repeats, the name a curse on his tongue. His sneer deepens, and his grip on your shoulder tightens until the steel plates groan.
"So the disgraced whelp of a traitorous house dares to show his face at a gathering of the King's most loyal subjects. And he sends his half-wit, bastard-faced retainer to meddle with the horses of his betters."
He dismisses your explanation with a cruel laugh.
"Your master's lack of honor is clearly contagious."
He doesn't release you. Instead, he begins to drag you from the paddock, his strength immense.
"Come. Let's find this 'lord' of yours. I'm sure the Herald of the Lists will be very interested to know a traitor's son is attempting to enter the tourney."
He is making a public spectacle of you, pulling you through the crowded tourney grounds. Heads are turning. Knights and squires stop to stare at the commotion: the great Sir Tristan de Pasteur, dragging a man in simple robes behind him like a common criminal. The whispers have already begun.
The steel gauntlet is a vise on your shoulder. Sir Tristan de Pasteur hauls you through the tourney grounds, his long strides forcing you into a stumbling half-trot. The crowd parts before him, a sea of curious and mocking faces. They see a great champion, a Knight of the Silver Hawk, dragging a man in beggar's robes, and they draw the obvious conclusion: justice is being served. You don't struggle. You don't resist. You simply allow yourself to be dragged along, and you continue to speak in a tone of earnest, almost desperate reasonableness.
"Okay, sure," you say, your voice carrying to the onlookers.
"My master has been trying to attend this contest, you see. I trust that a man as beautiful as you will understand that sometimes less attractive people like us have it difficult, yes? A second chance to prove ourselves?"
Sir Tristan stops dead. The sudden halt nearly sends you sprawling. He turns, his handsome face a mask of utter, incredulous contempt. He looks from your face to the faces in the crowd, then back to you.
The plea for pity, combined with the bizarre, fawning flattery, has not moved him. It has armed him. A cruel, barking laugh explodes from his helmet.
"A second chance?" he booms, his voice dripping with venomous mirth for the benefit of the gathered crowd.
"Honor is not a cheap trinket to be lost and found again, you half-wit! Your master's father chose his path. The name Braisechant is a stain, and it will not be cleansed in the lists of honorable men!"
He turns, resuming his march, dragging you with renewed purpose.
"And as for beauty," he scoffs,
"if your master shares your face, then he is indeed an ugly creature. One fit only for the gallows, not the tourney grounds."
The crowd laughs along with him, their mockery a wave of sound that follows in your wake. You have not won his pity; you have become the centerpiece of his public triumph. He hauls you toward a large, brightly colored pavilion where a line of knights waits. At a desk draped in silk, a portly herald is carefully inscribing names into a large ledger. And at the front of the line, just turning away from the desk, is Louie.
He sees you. He sees the great Sir Tristan de Pasteur dragging you by the shoulder. He sees the laughing, jeering crowd.
His face, which had been a mask of calm, noble composure, freezes.
Sir Tristan shoves you forward, sending you stumbling to your knees in the mud before Louie's feet. He points a steel-clad finger down at you, then raises his gaze to meet Louie's.
"Braisechant," Sir Tristan sneers, his voice a lash of pure contempt. "Is this pathetic creature yours? I found him attempting to tamper with my horse."
You speak the words from your knees, your voice ringing with a cheerful, goading tone that is utterly at odds with your humiliating position in the mud. You are not a victim pleading for mercy; you are an agent of chaos throwing a lit match into a powder keg.
"Yeah, Handsome Man here says that you cannot match him in honor, speed, strength, and horse riding! What you gonna say about that, huh?"
The effect is instantaneous and absolute. Sir Tristan de Pasteur's cruel, triumphant sneer vanishes as if wiped from his face. It is replaced by a mask of pure, murderous rage. His handsome features twist into a snarl of fury. You have not just insulted him; you have used his own arrogance as a weapon, turned it into a public challenge, and laid it at his feet in front of a hundred witnesses. He cannot deny the sentiment without denying his own superiority, and he cannot accept the challenge without acknowledging you, the peasant in the mud, as a legitimate instigator.
He has been perfectly, completely trapped.
The crowd's derisive laughter dies in their throats, replaced by a collective, sharp intake of breath. This is no longer a nobleman disciplining a commoner.
This is a formal challenge, issued in the heart of the tourney grounds. Louie, who had been frozen in shock, now moves. He takes a single, deliberate step forward, placing himself between you and the enraged Knight of the Silver Hawk. The shock in his eyes is gone, replaced by a look of cold, hard steel. The lightning has struck. The thunder must now answer. He looks down at you for a fraction of a second, a silent acknowledgement passing between you. Then he raises his head, and his gaze, as cold and hard as Sir Tristan's, locks onto the champion's furious eyes. Sir Tristan's gauntleted fist is clenched so tightly the steel plates creak. A low, dangerous growl rumbles in his chest. The entire tourney ground has fallen silent, the world narrowing to the space between these two knights, the challenge hanging, unspoken but undeniable, in the cold sea air.
The air is a razor's edge. Two Silver-Tier knights, one a disgraced scion, the other a celebrated champion, are locked in a silent, furious battle of wills. The entire tourney ground holds its breath, waiting for the challenge that will inevitably be issued, for the first blow in a duel of honor.
And then, from your position on your knees in the mud, you shatter the moment into a thousand pieces of pure, glorious absurdity. You clap your hands together like a child at a puppet show, your voice ringing with infectious, unhinged glee.
"Ohhhh, that looks like the clash of good and evil here, so exciting!"
Before anyone can process the statement, you begin to chant, your voice rising in a one-man chorus of support for the antagonist.
"TRISTAN! TRISTAN! TRISTAN! TRISTAN!"
The effect is not like dropping a pin in a silent room; it is like setting off a firework in a library.
The profound, solemn tension that had gripped the crowd evaporates in an instant.
A few stifled snorts of laughter break the silence, then a wave of confused, incredulous chuckles ripples through the onlookers. They are no longer watching a duel of honor; they are watching a celebrated champion being heckled by his own victim. Sir Tristan de Pasteur's handsome face, which had been a mask of murderous fury, goes utterly slack with disbelief.
The rage is still there, but it is now directionless, short-circuited by a level of madness he has no frame of reference for. He looks from you, the cheering lunatic in the mud, to the laughing faces in the crowd, and then to Louie, who remains a statue of cold, hard steel in the middle of this sudden circus.
The Knight of the Silver Hawk has been so thoroughly and bizarrely outmaneuvered that he is left speechless. He is a predator who has just had his prey start juggling. Louie stands his ground, his expression unreadable, a pillar of stoic resolve in a hurricane of absurdity you have just unleashed. The entire tourney ground is now looking at Sir Tristan, not with awe or fear, but with a gleeful anticipation, waiting to see how the great champion will respond to being made a fool of by a madman.
You don't wait for a response. While Sir Tristan is frozen by the sheer, unadulterated madness of your cheering, you scramble backward on your hands and knees. You move not like a warrior, but like a panicked crab, kicking up mud until you melt into the front rank of the astonished crowd. The spectators instinctively part to let you in, their expressions a mixture of amusement, pity, and disbelief.
You are now one of them. A spectator at your own chaos. You immediately turn to a portly merchant standing beside you, grabbing his arm with an air of conspiratorial excitement.
"Remarkable, isn't he?" you say, your voice filled with a breathless, genuine-sounding awe as you gesture towards the fuming Sir Tristan.
"The lands of House Pasteur must be rich indeed to grow such a strong and tall son! Look at the breadth of those shoulders! Can you imagine the feasts they must have?"
Before the merchant can reply, you turn to a pair of squires on your other side.
"He must have women courting him by the dozen. By the hundred, even! I am very envious indeed. A man like that, he has everything. It's truly inspiring, don't you think?"
The crowd, which had been on the verge of laughter, now begins to murmur. Your words, a stream of fawning, over-the-top praise, are spreading like a virus. The compliments are so absurdly effusive, so sycophantic, that they become a far more potent form of mockery than any direct insult could ever be. You are not just heckling Sir Tristan; you are painting him as a preening peacock, a pampered giant, and the crowd is starting to see him that way.
Sir Tristan de Pasteur hears it all. He sees the smirks, hears the whispers. His public triumph has curdled into a public humiliation of catastrophic proportions. The veins in his neck stand out like cords, and his handsome face is a mask of pure, murderous rage. He has been played. Utterly. He can no longer address you. To do so would be to engage with the madman, to acknowledge the jester who has stolen his crown.
There is only one person left in this arena who can restore his honor. He takes a single, stiff step forward, his entire being focused on the one man who has remained silent through it all. His voice, when it comes, is no longer a booming sneer. It is a low, cold, and deadly hiss of pure venom, a sound that cuts through all the murmuring.
"Braisechant." He points a single, trembling, steel-clad finger at Louie. "You and I. In the lists. Noon tomorrow. A duel of first blood."
The Herald of the Lists, who had been watching with a mixture of horror and fascination, quickly dips his quill in ink. "A formal challenge is issued!" he announces, his voice quavering slightly.
"Sir Tristan de Pasteur against Lord Louie de Braisechant! So recorded!"
The challenge has been made. It has been witnessed. It has been recorded. The trap is sprung.