SLAM!!
"... AND THERE HE GOES AGAIN!!" The announcer screamed at the top of his lungs, trying hard to be heard over the roars of the wildly celebrating crowd, "Jon Snow has done it again. He blasts his lance right in the middle of his opponent's shield and sends him flying off his horse, eating the dirt. This is the fourth time, people, FOURTH TIME! that Jon Snow has defeated his foe on the first ride. I have never seen anything like this happen before in my life. IT IS COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED..."
"The man must not have been to many tourneys if he hadn't ever seen a man sent flying off his horse in a Tourney," Olenna commented with a snort as she picked up a small piece of cheese from the plate in front of her and popped it into her mouth, "If I didn't know any better I would have thought the Northerners brought the announcer along from North,"
The Old Tyrell Matrairch was sitting on an elevated platform, with Willas and Margaery on either side of her, and their Mother and the other Tyrell family members sitting on chairs below them.
The whole platform was shaded by a heavy green coloured velvet cloth adorned with a big rose of House Tyrell, shielding them from the scorching sun.
And in front of them, on an even lower height, sat the platforms for their various vassal houses, such as House Hightower, House Tarly, House Redwyne, and all the others.
There were about six such massive platforms scattered in a straight line on the left side of the Tourney grounds, with each belonging to a different great house signified by the giant symbols on their tarp, similar to the Tyrell rose.
From the crowned stag of House Baratheon, the lion of House Lannister, the blazing sun-and-spear of Martell, the House Arryn's falcons dancing on sky-blue cloth, the fish of House Tully, and finally the wolf of the Starks dancing on a sky-blue cloth, every great house except for the Grejoys was represented here.
Of course, in the very middle of them, in the very best position, stood the Royal Pavilion with a broad wooden dais overlooking the lists, and some of the Lord Paramounts, such as Lord Edmure and Lord Mace, had chosen to forgo their own pavilion to share the luxurious dias with the King and his family.
With rich Myrish carpets covering the floorboards, and elegantly carved railings wrapped around the dark wooden platform, the platform screamed extravagance befitting the Royal family, and seeing it, no one would have been able to tell that their treasury was empty and the Kingdom in heavy debt.
In between the stands for the Nobles, a constant stream of pages and other servants hurriedly ran to and fro carrying wine cups and trays of fruit.
Young squires and other noble children leaned dangerously over railings for a better view whenever riders thundered past below.
Farther down the field sprawled the knightly camps, where hundreds of tents spread across the meadows beyond the lists — from enormous silk pavilions striped in house colours to humble tattered canvases belonging to hedge knights.
Armourers hammered dents from breastplates beneath awnings while smiths worked portable forges that glowed red even in daylight. Horses stamped and snorted from long picket lines as squires rushed back and forth carrying shields, buckets, and bundles of fresh lances taller than a man.
At the centre lay the lists — long lanes of churned brown earth fenced by waist-high wooden barriers painted in stripes of red and white.
Fresh sand had been scattered across the ground to drink the blood and soften falls, though by midday it had already been torn apart beneath iron-shod hooves into ruts and muddy scars.
On the other side of the lists stood the common galleries: great wooden stands hastily raised by carpenters, creaking beneath the weight of thousands. Smallfolk crowded shoulder to shoulder upon them — merchants in faded wool, hedge knights, stableboys, whores in bright scarves, farmers who had walked days for a glimpse of splendour.
All of them shouting themselves hoarse with every pass, waving scraps of cloth and gambling away coppers with greasy-handed bookmakers weaving through the aisles.
"I think he was talking about the four wins in a row thing, Grandmother, and less about defeating his opponent on the first ride," Willas said with a smile on his face as he watched Jon complete a circuit of the grounds while waving his hands at the crowd and taking in the cheers, before riding for his tents.
The crowd had taken an immense liking to this handsome bastard from the North, and cheered louder for him than any other knight out here, except perhaps the great ones like Ser Barristan Selmy. 'It seems all those rumours about him have made him very famous amongst the smallfolks,'
"Which is also not a very unique thing considering that there are five others out there, along with him, who have done the same." Olenna continued as she curled her lips at the theatrics the boy was performing, unable to deny that the boy knew how to be charming, "It is only the fourth round after all, and the opponents he faced until now were not much to speak of either, considering that two of them had the surname Frey," she said disdainfully.
It was only during gatherings like these that one understands the sheer number of progenies that the old bastard sitting on that toll bridge has brought into this world, as even the Old noble families couldn't boast the more than 10 participants that the Freys have brought to the Tourney.
And while most of them did not bring much to the table in terms of skills, a few of them still managed to clear the previous rounds through sheer luck and numbers.
The tourney had started about 3 days ago with almost 250 participants registering for the lists, and while that seems like a large number, the Tourney grounds had been adequately prepared with seven parallel lanes constructed so that almost sixteen knights could simultaneously compete against each other.
Starting an hour after Sunrise, and then ending before sunset wth a mere two-hour lunch break at noon to let the crowd eat, and the labourers repair the grounds, there were almost 8 hours available in the day for the Tourney to happen.
But with all kinds of complexities involved, such as horses running off course, men getting injured, squires fumbling with the armour, and nobles being lazy and late, it took no less than an hour to complete each round, and that was with the matches being deliberately set so that the skilled and famous do not compete with each other too soon forcing the matches to go for longer than a few rides.
The rounds were also all single elimination, so the first round, with over 250 riders, took only two days to be completed, cutting the numbers in half, and the second round, with fewer participants, took only a single day, making the number much more manageable.
One needs to understand that the knights participating here had arrived from all over the seven kingdoms, and a rough estimate told that there were about forty from Reach, twenty-five from Stormlands, thirty from Vale, thirty from the Westerlands, thirty-five from Riverlands, fifty from King's Landing and nearby Crown's Land, and a dozen or so from the North, and the Dorne combined.
But more than half of these were landed knights, with most only having a few pennies to their name, and some of them were even competing in groups of three or four while sharing armour and even horses between each other. All of them had arrived here with the wishes of clinching the absurdly high prizes that the King had denoted for the top three places.
Sadly, though, by the end of the second round, most of the non-noble participants had been eliminated, leaving just a few lucky ones who would probably be gone by the end of the day.
And when one thought about it, this was nothing surprising, as raising a knight capable of competing in a tourney was an expensive few had the time, and more importantly, money to train consistently over long years to get good at a sport that had few uses outside of war and tourneys.
It wasn't called a Noble's sport for nothing...
"The six of them you are speaking of here are not people you would normally compare with a fifteen-year-old boy, Grandmother," Willas replied with a helpless smile on his face, "After all, the likes of Ser Barristan, Ser Jamie, Blackfish, Sandor Clegane, and—"
"And your brother Loras," Olenna interrupted with a raised eyebrow, "Don't tell me, you think even brother is too old to be compared with the brat from the North just because he is a few years older,"
"Of course, not, Grandmother," Willas answered hastily, as the man knew how proud his Grandmother was of his little Brother, so he immediately rushed to rectify his mistake, "If anything, Loras is even more of a prodigy than any of the other six, let alone Jon."
Margaery suppressed her smile as she watched her brother try to appease her Grandmother, so as not to be on her bad side. While she had always been a little fond of Jon, it was nothing compared to how she thought of her own precious grandson, and she would not let anyone suppress his glory, even if it was someone she was secretly supporting.
And Willlas wasn't lying here, as it had been many a year since her little brother had faced defeat when it came to lists. Even the exalted knight Jamie Lannister had previously faced defeat at the hands of Loras Tyrell in a Tourney held during Prince Joffrey's Tenth name day celebration.
"But the thing is, Grandmother, everyone already knew that Loras was a brilliant knight; it was a fact that had been established by him participating in numerous Tourneys over the years and winning them, but it is different with Jon, the boy has never participated in Tourney before this, and even you have to agree that the boy is performing exceptionally for his first ever Tourney,"
"That's the thing, I am not quite sure of this information spread by the announcer that this is the first ever tourney," Olenna murmured with narrowed eyes, "No one should be able to do this well and remain so composed in their very first lists." The Old woman remembered quite clearly the first time Loras had participated in a real Tourney, and how he had fumbled with his horse and almost fallen halfway through the ride because of getting distracted by a rider in a nearby lane.
The boy had lost quite badly at that time, and he had been so embarrassed that he hadn't even dared to show his face at another Tourney for a whole year after that.
"It would be hard for someone to make up a story like that, Grandmother," Margaery replied with a smile on her face, "After all, someone somewhere would have heard about it if he had participated in a Tourney, even if it was a small one with few participants."
"Perhaps, he entered without giving his real name," Willas suggested with a frown on his face, "Though I don't know why anyone would do something like that—"
"Wait! Why is he coming back again so soon?" Margaery asked as she sat up on her chair with a frown on her face.
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