Rhaegar fell on the seventh pass.
My left arm ached; the constant loud cheering of the crowd echoing in my helmet was giving me a headache, and something in my thigh had started to chafe after I got back on Smoker—I must've put something back on wrong.
But there was no true struggle in this jousting. Not truly.
He struck me a few times, yes, and I clipped him on the shoulder on our third pass.
With one of his feet slipping out of its stirrup at the same time, the Prince had hung onto his courser with one leg and one gauntlet around a hastily grabbed rein, pulling himself back onto his saddle just before his dangling foot touched the ground.
Loud gasps erupted from the stands at that, yet I couldn't tell if he had been selling it up for drama or if I had truly gotten him that well.
Were we jousters or mummers entertaining a crowd of circus-goers?
It seemed to me as if Rhaegar was doing just enough to keep himself from losing right at the beginning, and thus being humiliated, without giving it a serious go at taking me down. All while also putting on a decent show to our audience.
And what had I done with that?
Follow along with the wishes of our royal highness? Trade inoffensive lances while giving the nobles and commons a ride for the history books?
No. Hell no.
With thousands of gold dragons on the line, I had tried to pull the man down from his horse with every trick and technique I had.
Tried brute forcing it against his shield.
Tried an Arthur Dayne-esque last second diverted thrust.
Tried aiming for his lance-arm.
Nothing. I couldn't get to him no matter what I tried. Through it all, Rhaegar Targaryen just sat there like a statue at the base of a rushing waterfall, completely unfazed.
Armored in black, with his helmet crested with gold, orange, and red silken streamers stirring as flames in the wind, he looked like the kind of figure you heard about only in song and history.
For a moment before the last bout, as I stared at him across the lane, I had the feeling that if Rhaegar was really playing the mummer for the crowd, then I was the puppet at the end of the strings, dancing this and that way according to his whims. Could he cut them at his pleasure?
I shivered at the thought. The way he simply skated around my every attempt at besting him with the grace of a water dancer, as if it was the simplest thing in the world for him, had my head in a whirl.
I was overthinking things, I knew.
Meeting people you had read about gave you a great advantage in dealing with them, but it also presented you with a skewed perspective of who they were.
Ink on paper could not convey the complexity of a real, flesh and bone person.
Ned. Tywin. Cersei. Barristan.
I had to stop thinking like they were characters instead of people. I couldn't villainize them for something they had yet to do, nor could I outright trust a 'good guy' character because I had seen their good deeds.
And Rhaegar? He was even more of a mystery to me.
A man shrouded in half-told stories and post-war revisionism.
Did he dream of the coming of a second long night? Was Lyanna captured or a woman in love? Hero or villain?
It was foolish of me to ever think like that. Rhaegar was only a man in the end.
But as I was learning throughout the last few bouts, with a lance in his hand and a horse beneath him, he was a man I could not underestimate.
I had readied myself to keep trying my best while the prince played his games when it happened.
In the next pass, my lance slipped above his shield, struck him flush against the chestplate, and swung him out of his seat.
Just like that.
When the deed was done, I glanced over my shoulder at Prince Rhaegar's downed form and shook my head. How did the man manage to make toppling off his horse look elegant?
The crowd broke into thunderous roars. I couldn't tell if it was for me or for the waving prince as he stepped off the field, nodding in my direction once I turned to him.
As befitting his rank, I bowed low on my saddle, confused thoughts churning in my head.
I had won. The tourney and all its prizes were mine.
I should be jubilant, should be jumping with joy that all my plans had finally come together.
Yesterday, I had even envisioned vaulting the railing and doing my best impression of a rockstar crowdsurfing atop the delirious smallfolks.
Why, then, did it feel like I had not come up on top on this exchange?
Before I could spiral, I pushed it out of mind. I still had a part to play here. Once the prince had disappeared around the corner, I allowed myself the usual rewards of victory.
My good arm rose into the air, followed by a spike of noise from the stands.
Not only the commons. The noble stands had broken into cautious cheers as well.
Lords and ladies from throughout the realm stood at their feet applauding and waving kerchiefs, some even shouting my moniker.
The Sapphire Knight would live long in their memories.
I tried to relish in it, the cheering, the glory, the thought of the new ships and the gold, my blood pumping with excitement and joy at my due rewards after all my hard work.
Couldn't do it. I felt more relief than triumph. The weight of responsibility I had been pushing back all throughout the week slipped away from my shoulders, and all I wanted was to take a hot bath and sleep until the long night came again.
I made my round around the lane, Smoker trotting across the tiltyard like a show pony, soaking in the attention as if he'd been the one to knock a prince down a peg.
When I came to Pate, holding up a fresh new lance toward me with a crown of roses at its end, I lifted up my visor so he could hear me over the noise.
"Don't throw this one away," I said, handing him my broken lance. "I'll come get it later."
Despite how shitty I felt, I knew it would make a good show-piece.
Father would love to have it in his solar so he could tell every visiting knight and lordling how his son had toppled a Targaryen prince to win the famous Lannisport tournament.
With that thought in mind, I glanced over my shoulder at a small section of the stands, and easily spotted my family celebrating in our box near the end of the tiltlane.
Arianne—whom I had discreetly escorted back up there during the break—and Alysanne had dropped all pretences of not recognizing the mystery knight.
They were jumping up and down like I'd just won a championship, crying out and waving madly at me, while Mother and Father shared a tender, more reserved hug between them.
Warmth washed through me at the scene, spreading out of my chest like a flower in bloom, and I felt light above Smoker. Light and giddy and with an annoying itch prickling at my eyes.
Suddenly, all my aches and pains were no worse than a small bruise.
Screw the ships and the gold, I thought to myself. That right there… that is victory.
xxx
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