Sir Tristan de Pasteur, his face a thundercloud of pure, murderous rage, gives Louie one last look that promises a painful death. He then turns on his heel, his silvered armor flashing, and stalks away, the crowd parting before him like a wave. The spectacle is over. The crowd, buzzing with the promise of tomorrow's duel, begins to disperse, chattering excitedly. The confrontation between the disgraced scion and the celebrated champion is now the talk of the tourney. Louie stands alone for a moment in the muddy clearing, the center of a hundred whispers. He watches Tristan's retreating back, his own face an unreadable mask of stone.
He then turns, his eyes scanning the crowd until they find you. He gives a single, almost imperceptible jerk of his head, a silent command to follow, before turning and walking away from the lists, toward the relative quiet of the horse paddocks. You extricate yourself from the crowd and follow him. The roar of the tourney grounds fades to a dull murmur behind you. You find him standing between two rows of tents, leaning against a wooden fence, staring at a nervous-looking mare that isn't his own.
He is utterly still, a statue of coiled tension. He doesn't look at you when you approach. For a full minute, he says nothing.
The only sounds are the distant cheers, the cry of a gull on the sea wind, and the soft snort of the nearby horse. Finally, he speaks, his voice a low, rough thing, raw with a feeling you cannot quite place.
"Janus." He lets out a long, slow breath, a plume of steam in the cold air.
"Do you have any idea," he says, his voice dangerously quiet, "what you just did?"
He finally turns to look at you, and his eyes are not full of gratitude or anger. They are wide with a kind of profound, weary disbelief.
"I came here to win a tourney. To build a reputation. Quietly. Methodically. In the space of five minutes, you have made me the mortal enemy of the Baron's most celebrated champion. You turned me into a public spectacle. You made a mockery of the entire concept of honor."
He pushes himself off the fence, taking a single step towards you. The sheer, frustrated energy rolling off him is a physical force.
"And," he says, the word a low growl of pure, undiluted exasperation
"You have also given me exactly what I wanted. A high-profile duel against the one man whose defeat will mean the most."
He stops in front of you, his expression a battlefield of conflicting emotions. He looks at you as if you are the most brilliant strategist and the most infuriating madman he has ever met.
"You are the most terrifying, unpredictable, and effective bastard I have ever known."
The accusation hangs in the cold sea air between you, a complex mixture of awe, frustration, and respect. Louie stares at you, waiting for an explanation, for the grand strategy behind the madness. You offer him a simple, almost apologetic shrug.
"I was just going around cursing the horses," you say, your voice a placid sea of honesty.
"Then I got caught by him. I was trying to salvage it the whole time."
You recount the entire, bizarre sequence of events, leaving nothing out. You tell him about the fawning "handsome man" compliments, the plea for a second chance for the "less attractive," the final goad from your knees, and the public cheerleading.
You explain it not as a calculated series of psychological attacks, but as a panicked, improvisational scramble to get out of trouble that somehow kept failing upward into greater and greater success.
"He just kept getting angrier," you conclude with a slight frown of genuine puzzlement.
"I didn't really have a plan." Louie's face, which had been a mask of grim intensity, goes utterly blank.
The weary disbelief returns, tenfold. He had just reconciled himself to the idea that you were a terrifying strategist. Now he has to process the infinitely more terrifying reality that you are a force of pure, instinctual, and accidentally brilliant chaos. He stares at you for a long, silent moment. Then he slowly, deliberately, pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes, as if warding off a migraine that threatens to split his skull in two.
"So," he says, his voice a low, strangled monotone of a man who has been pushed far beyond the limits of his sanity.
"You were not playing a grand game. You were not engineering a public confrontation to secure my honor."
He opens his eyes, and they are the eyes of a man staring into the abyss.
"You were trying to give the best horse at the tourney a mild case of diarrhea, and you failed so catastrophically that you have accidentally made me the centerpiece of the most anticipated duel of the year."
He lets out a short, sharp, humorless bark of laughter.
"Of course. Of course, that's what happened."
You nod, then add the final, practical point.
"Well… Since I can't curse his horse now—he'll be watching for it—I will buff your horse instead. And I will buff you." Louie stops laughing. He latches onto the words like a drowning man grasping a piece of driftwood.
Buffs. Practical, understandable, magical advantages. This is a language he understands.
"Right," he says, taking a deep, steadying breath. "Buffs. Yes. Good."
He looks you dead in the eye, his expression now one of grim, absolute resolve. The madness has passed. The mission remains.
"He is a Silver-Tier champion, Janus. His skill is renowned throughout the Royalist houses. I will need every advantage you can give me."
He has accepted it. All of it. He is no longer trying to understand your methods. He is simply going to trust in the results, no matter how insane the path to get there. "We should rest," he says, his voice now crisp and businesslike. "Find a quiet place to make camp. Tomorrow at noon... I will need to be ready."
Before the sun rises on the day of the duel, let us observe the great currents of the world, which have not stood still while you traveled.
---
FACTION TURN: DAY 1 - 39
While you and Louie made your long journey west, the dominoes you foresaw have begun to topple with grim precision. The whispers on the road and the talk in the taverns have solidified into hard, unavoidable news, carried by panicked merchants and grim-faced royal couriers.
The Southern Coasts Ablaze: The most dire news comes from the south. As you predicted, the Asranid Sultanate, seeing the northern powers distracted, has unleashed its fury. A massive Corsair fleet, commanded by the infamous Gold-Tier admiral, Tariq "the Scourge," has fallen upon the southern coast of Aquitania like a plague of locusts. The initial raids have been devastatingly brutal and efficient. The coastal baronies of Narbonne and Montpellier have been particularly hard-hit, with entire towns put to the torch and thousands of citizens dragged away in chains, destined for the slave markets of Cordoba.
The Iron Rose's Plea: In response, Duchess Eléonore of Aquitania has acted with swift fury. The ducal army is being mustered in Bordeaux, and a desperate plea for aid has been sent by royal courier to the Crownlands in Paris. The Duchess has requested immediate reinforcement from the Royal Army and the deployment of the King's Gold-Tier champions to counter Tariq "the Scourge," citing an existential threat to the Kingdom of Francia itself.
The Silent Standoff in the East: The Duchess's plea, however, has arrived in a court deafened by the drums of another, colder war. In the east, the situation has escalated precisely as you foresaw.
The Bourgogne Gambit pays off: Duke Charles's "defensive fortifications" are now revealed to be a massive, forward-deployed army, bristling with siege equipment. In response, Kaiser Heinrich IV has moved a significant portion of the Imperial Legions to the border. The two largest armies on the continent now stare at each other across a few hundred paces of contested land, a powder keg of steel and ambition waiting for a single spark. All of King Philippe's attention, resources, and Gold-Tier assets are focused on this standoff, leaving him with little to spare for what he perceives as a "seasonal raiding problem" in his southern duchy. The world is holding its breath.
The south is bleeding, the east is on the brink of war, and in the heart of the Royalist west, a grand tourney is about to be held, a celebration of a peace that no longer exists.
[About 11:50 AM on Day 40]
The day of the duel arrives under a sky the color of a bruised pearl. The sea wind is cold and sharp, carrying the scents of salt and anticipation. The main lists of the tourney grounds are packed to overflowing. Commoners jostle for space in the stands, while lords and ladies watch from beneath the silken awnings of their private pavilions.
At the center of the royal box, Baron Faucher sits on a carved oak chair, his expression one of bored confidence. You stand in the front rank of the commoners' section, a ghost in the crowd, your simple robes a stark contrast to the riot of color and steel around you. You have a perfect, unobstructed view of the field. A blast of trumpets silences the buzzing crowd. The Herald of the Lists, his voice booming with practiced enthusiasm, announces the combatants.
"In the west corner, the challenger, representing a house returned to the light of honor, Lord Louie de Braisechant!"
Louie rides onto the field. He is a vision of grim purpose. His new suit of plain, unadorned field plate is a workmanlike answer to the gilded armor of his peers. His heavy oak shield bears the simple, roaring lion of his house, a stark declaration of identity.
He handles his chestnut mare with a quiet, confident skill, his face an unreadable mask of stone beneath his open-faced helmet. A murmur of curiosity and pity runs through the crowd.
"And in the east corner," the Herald bellows, his voice rising,
"the champion of this tourney, the pride of the western shores, Sir Tristan de Pasteur, the Silver Hawk!"
Sir Tristan enters to a roar of adulation from the noble pavilions. He is a masterpiece of martial arrogance, his silvered armor gleaming, the hawk crest on his helmet seeming to glare down at the field. He sits atop his magnificent white charger, a living statue of chivalric perfection. He gives Louie a look of pure, venomous contempt and then offers a dazzling, confident smile to the ladies in the stands.
You lean against the wooden barrier, your expression placid. As Sir Tristan accepts a blunted tourney lance from his squire, you focus your will. You do not need a grand spell, just a needle of pure, malevolent intent.
A thread of your power, invisible and silent, snakes across the field and sinks into the champion's flesh, bypassing his armor entirely.
A single, silent command word forms in your mind:
"Agitate"
[About 12:00 PM on Day 40]
The two knights take their positions at opposite ends of the lists. The Herald raises a silk banner. The crowd holds its breath. The banner falls. Two massive warhorses explode into motion, their hooves tearing up the damp earth. It is a thunderous charge, a collision of two Silver-Tier wills. Lances are leveled, shields are braced. The distance closes in a blur of churning mud and straining leather.
Just before the moment of impact, you see it: a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch of Sir Tristan's right shoulder inside his pauldron.
A flicker of irritation.
A microsecond of distraction.
CRACK!
The sound of the impact is like a lightning strike. Tristan's lance hits Louie's shield dead center and shatters into a dozen pieces, the force of the blow staggering Louie's mare but not unseating him. Louie's own lance, however, strikes a solid, glancing blow against Tristan's shield, scoring a clear point and forcing the champion to brace hard in his saddle to stay mounted.
The crowd roars its approval. The first pass is a draw in Tristan's favor by the rules of shattering a lance, but a clear moral victory for the underdog. The two knights wheel their horses around at the far ends of the list. As a squire rushes a new lance to Sir Tristan, you see him shift uncomfortably in his saddle.
The itch you planted has begun its insidious work, a phantom torment that cannot be scratched, a maddening distraction from the task at hand. His handsome face, visible under his helmet, is flushed with a mixture of exertion and profound, unplaceable irritation.
---
[About 12:05 PM on Day 40]
The trumpets sound again. The second charge begins. This time, Sir Tristan's charge is less elegant, more furious. He is a man determined to end this now, to crush the upstart who has dared to challenge him. He thunders down the field, a vision of silver and rage.
Louie is his opposite: a rock of cold, focused calm. He meets the charge without emotion, his body a perfect union with his mount. As the distance vanishes, you focus your will again, intensifying the curse.
The annoying itch on Tristan's shoulder blade becomes a single, sharp, maddening sting, as if a hornet were trapped inside his armor.
At the very last second, a spasm of pure, frustrated reflex makes Tristan's entire body jerk.
It is a tiny, involuntary movement, but at this speed, it is a fatal error.
His lance point, which had been aimed true, shifts upward by a mere two inches. It glances off the top of Louie's shield with a screech of tortured metal, scoring no points. Louie's aim is perfect.
His lance strikes Sir Tristan's shield not with a glancing blow, but with the dead-center, soul-shattering impact of a battering ram. The sound is not a crack, but a deafening explosion of wood and steel. The Silver Hawk's shield splinters.
Sir Tristan is lifted clean out of his saddle as if by an invisible hand. For a moment, he seems to hang in the air, a monument of silvered steel, before he crashes to the muddy ground with a sickening, final clang of armor. A wave of stunned, absolute silence washes over the tourney grounds. Then, the commoners' stands erupt.
A single, unified, deafening roar of disbelief and triumph washes over the field. Louie sits victorious astride his mare, his lance still held steady, a statue of quiet, unbelievable victory.
Sir Tristan de Pasteur, the celebrated champion, the Silver Hawk, lies in a heap in the mud, unhorsed and utterly defeated. Baron Faucher is on his feet in the royal box, his face a mask of slack-jawed shock. You are just a face in the crowd, a quiet, unassuming retainer, smiling faintly at a job well done.
The silence that follows Sir Tristan's fall is a physical thing, a vacuum that sucks all the air from the tourney grounds. It is broken by a single, ragged cheer from the commoners' stands, which quickly swells into a unified, deafening roar of triumph for the underdog. The nobles in their pavilions remain utterly, stone-facedly silent, their shock and disbelief a palpable wave of disapproval.
The Herald of the Lists, his face pale, seems to find his voice.
"The... the victor, by unhorsing, is Lord Louie de Braisechant!"
Squires rush onto the field, a flock of anxious birds. They surround the fallen Sir Tristan, helping him to his feet. He shoves their hands away, his silvered armor now smeared with mud and humiliation. He rips his helmet off, his handsome face a twisted mask of pure, murderous fury.
He does not look at Louie. He does not acknowledge the crowd. He simply turns and stalks off the field, a broken champion, his every step radiating a promise of future vengeance. Louie remains mounted for a moment, a statue of quiet victory. Then, with a calm, deliberate motion, he dismounts and removes his own helmet. The crowd sees his face clearly for the first time—the same face as the strange, unassuming retainer who had instigated the entire affair.
The whispers among the nobility, already buzzing, intensify into a fever pitch. He has not just won a duel. He has made a statement. As a squire takes the reins of his mare, a young page in the Baron's livery scurries onto the field, his face a mixture of awe and fear. He stops before Louie, offering a hasty bow.
"My lord Braisechant," the page squeaks.
"Baron Faucher requires your presence in his pavilion. At once."
Louie gives a single, curt nod. He glances toward the stands, his eyes finding yours for a fraction of a second in a silent exchange. Then he turns and follows the page, his heavy armored boots leaving deep prints in the muddy field. You detach yourself from the cheering crowd and follow at a respectful distance, the ever-present shadow.
[About 12:30 PM on Day 40]
The Baron's pavilion is an opulent island of silk and carved oak in the sea of mud and chaos. The air inside is thick with the scent of spiced wine and the heavy silence of powerful men who have just witnessed the impossible.
Baron Faucher, a thick-set man with a carefully trimmed grey beard and shrewd, calculating eyes, sits in a heavy chair. He is flanked by two of his household knights, their faces grim. Louie enters and offers a perfectly executed, if minimal, bow. He stands before the Baron, his armor still bearing the dirt of the lists, his expression unreadable.
You stand just inside the pavilion's entrance, a silent observer. The Baron stares at Louie for a long, tense moment, his fingers drumming a soft, rhythmic tattoo on the arm of his chair.
"Braisechant," he begins, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "You have made a considerable mess on my tourney grounds."
Louie does not flinch. "I merely answered a challenge, my Lord Baron."
"You answered a challenge that your... retainer... baited my champion into making," the Baron counters, his eyes flicking to you for a fraction of a second before returning to Louie.
"A theatrical and, I must admit, effective performance." He leans forward, the shrewd calculation in his eyes overriding his anger.
"I am left with a question. Who are you? The son of a disgraced house should not possess such skill. That was not the work of a boy; that was the work of a veteran. So, I ask again. Who are you, and who is your patron?"
Louie meets his gaze without wavering.
"My skill is my own, my Lord. My only patron is my desire to restore the honor of my name."
The Baron lets out a short, sharp laugh, devoid of humor.
"Honor. A noble sentiment. But honor does not put food on the table or steel on a man's back. It does not buy a warhorse that could carry a Duke's champion."
He stands, his presence filling the tent. He walks toward Louie, circling him like a wolf assessing a rival.
"You have skill. You have courage. And you have made a very powerful enemy today. A man of your talents should not be without powerful friends to protect him from such things."