Текст книги "The Knight and the Moth"

Автор книги: Rachel Gillig

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

Her grip on my hand slackened, and I looked up. “One?”

There were wrinkles on her brow, the telltale sign of a furrow. One tilted her head to the side, her shrouded gaze fixed on something in the bushes near the gate. “What’s that?”

On first glance, it seemed no more than a stack of twigs. But the closer I looked, the better I could see that the stack was perfectly balanced. Six twigs that smelled sharp as nettle, wrapped in a leather strip.

Idleweed. Tied around it was a note.

Be ready by nightfall.

—R

(The idleweed is to spare my fucking boots. Don’t smoke it all.)

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Coulson Faire

Coin.

The only portent, the only prosperity—the only god of men—is coin.

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CHAPTER FIVE SPRITES IN THE GLEN

We smoked all the idleweed.

Four danced around the room, her white dress and a trail of smoke billowing behind her. “Where did you get this, Six?”

I held a sprig of idleweed in the crease of my lips and brought a candle to it. Fire, smoke, inhale. This time, I didn’t cough. “You’ll meet him soon enough,” I muttered, passing candles to Two, then Three, while One did the same to Five. A minute later, our entire chamber was clouded in smoke and lit by a lavender sunset, the effect deliciously hazy.

“Whoa.” One’s voice was awestruck. “There goes my nausea. Will it make me tired?”

I’d stayed up well enough the night before, seething over Rodrick Myndacious. “Shouldn’t.”

Three grinned at Five, who opened her mouth with a wolfish smile and swallowed the smoke Three blew into it. Two lay back on her mattress, limbs loose, and stared up at the ceiling. Of all of us, she was the least unlikely to say, “Let’s do this when our service is up. Lie in bed. Smoke. Drink. Eat. Do absolutely nothing.”

“Absolutely nothing,” Three agreed, raising her twig of idleweed in a salute.

Four moved to the center of the room. “And when we need money we’ll work and when we get bored we’ll play with knights or whomever we please, but we’ll never give them anything. We’ll only love one another.” She looked around at us, and I wished then I could see her eyes, because I knew they were wide and feverish and full of assurance. “Because out there, even when the shroud is off”—she pointed out the window to Traum’s sweeping hills—“we will be daughters of Aisling. Diviners, harbingers of gods—not real women. People will want us without ever wishing to know us.” She came round the room. Kissed each Diviner plain on the mouth. “But we’ll always be so much more than that to one another.”

When she came to me, I lowered the idleweed from my mouth and felt Four’s lips in its place. “Promise me it’ll be like that,” she said.

I had no right to promise. I knew, just like the other women in the room, that Divining—reading the Omens’ signs—gave me no sway over their enactment. There was no telling what tapestry the future would weave for us. Still, I said with my whole being, “I promise it will.”

“Me too,” the Diviners replied, our voices catching in the smoke.

A knock sounded upon the cottage door.

Four banished her intensity with a final puff of idleweed, then pinched her cheeks in the cracked looking glass and pushed up her breasts. “Well, shrews. Shall we don our cloaks?”

They were for winter months, our cloaks. Wool and undyed, they’d been traded by a weaver from the Cliffs of Bellidine for a Divination. And while they were heavy and hot for late summer, when we drew the hoods up, we were Diviners no more, our dresses covered, our faces and shrouds perfectly obscured by shadow.

Five chuckled. “We look like the statues in the courtyard.”

“Remember,” One said at the door. “No eyes, no names.”

We shuffled down the stairs on a tide of smoke and slipped outside into the night.

The grounds were still, the gates closed—the outbuildings darkened. The gargoyles would be asleep. The abbess, too. The only movement was the wind, breathing through the grass.

The six knights, leaned up against the cottage, made no sound at all.

Two jumped, then swore. The rest of us went still at the cottage door, save Four, who ran headlong into the company. “Which of you is buying my first drink at the Faire?”

The knights grinned in her wake.

“Gods, I envy her,” One murmured. “I never know what to say to these eager, puppy-dog knights.”

“They’re not all puppies.” Even in the dark, I could see the faces of the knights. There were men and women in their ranks, all wearing armor and the same awestruck expression as they surveyed us in our hoods.

All, save the tall one with three gold bands in his ear, smiled at us.

Rory leaned against the cottage wall, scanning the line of Diviners. He had no business telling me from the others, my face hidden in the shadow of my hood, but his gaze halted the moment it crossed me, dark eyes narrowing in an unspoken challenge.

I raised the remains of my idleweed. Shot smoke out of my mouth at the sky.

Rory itched his nose with his middle finger.

Maude came to stand before us. I could tell by the way the other knights made room for her that she was in charge. “All right, Diviners,” she said in a low voice. “There are rules to this happy little jaunt. Each of you has been assigned a knight. That way, if we split up, none of you are lost or unprotected. Keep those hoods up—folk of Coulson are grabby at the best of times. Don’t tell anyone who you are.” She paused. “In fact, don’t talk to anyone, full stop. Last thing we want is a rumor that the knighthood is somehow undermining the abbess.”

She turned to her fellow knights. “Don’t embarrass yourselves. Don’t drink too much or gamble or fight—Tory, I’m looking at you. If we split up, meet near the king’s pyre. Keep a close eye on your Diviner, and get them back here before dawn.”

Unlike Rory, Maude had some difficulty finding me in the crowd. “Is that acceptable?” she said pointedly. “Per our agreement?”

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “We’re even.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Rory muttered behind her.

Maude sighed, waving the company forward. “Try to have fun.”

We walked in silence, but there was a loudness to our verve—a buzz within us. We followed Maude down the tor to the west wall. I looked back only once at Aisling Cathedral, who, cold, beautiful, and disapproving, watched us disappear into the night.

The road was called a holloway—a sunken, tunnel-like road that led away from Aisling’s tor into the vast fields of Coulson Faire. Grass and shrubs, green and brimming with life, grew at a curve, and the leafy tops of trees let in only the barest glimpse of moonlight. It was like stepping into a living tunnel. A hollow, blooming log.

There was a secret spot on the west wall the other Diviners always used when they snuck away from the tor. One that was not such a high drop onto the holloway road below.

I was a little insulted how, without instruction, the knights found it. They climbed over first, then caught the Diviners as they dropped to the other side. I went last, climbing up, then over the wall.

I didn’t need anyone to catch me. Still, just before my feet touched the ground on the other side of the wall, hands encased in gauntlets braced my hips.

“All good?” said a voice.

My feet hit the road and I turned. The knight who held me had short blond hair and a smile wide enough that I was afforded a view of all his straight white teeth. “I’m fine,” I answered, brushing him off.

“My name is Hamelin Fischer, Diviner. If it’s all right by you, I’ll be your escort for the evening.”

Anyone but Myndacious. Again, I said, “Fine,” and we continued on.

Not ten minutes later, a noise began in the trees.

I startled. There it was again—a harmony of tiny voices, laughing. The clamor grew, echoing through beech trees, through ferns and ivies and nettle brambles. I turned to One. “What’s that?”

High in the trees, something flittered. I looked up, and my hood fell back.

There were creatures above us. Small, quick-moving. They looked like hummingbirds, their bodies brightly feathered and iridescent, only they bore no beaks, just slat-like nostrils, thin purple lips, and round, inquisitive eyes. Their jointed arms and legs were as purple as burdock flowers. When they opened their mouths, I could see rows of pale, jagged teeth.

They sat on leaves and twigs, watching us.

“Sprites,” One whispered, her gaze lifted like mine.

A few little creatures dropped down from the safety of the trees, hovering, then darting over the knights ahead us, hissing. I could hear their bodies tinging against armor as they swiped again and again at the knights.

A sword was drawn. In a single blow, the pommel collided with one of the sprites, knocking it from the air, like a fly swatted. The sprite fell onto the side of the road, where it lay, shaking, then still, upon the grass.

I gasped. “Why did he do that? It’s just a little thing!”

“Beastly creatures, sprites,” said a voice near my ear.

I’d forgotten Hamelin. He walked with another knight behind One and me, looking up at the sprites in the trees, hand lowered to the hilt of his sword. “Creatures of the land can’t be trusted. There’s no room for mercy, even for the little ones. Large or small, handsome or monstrous, all sprites are violent and impossible to control.”

“Not true,” One countered. “The gargoyles are sprites. Ancient ones, trained by abbesses of old to serve the cathedral. They heel well enough.” She looked up at the trees. “These little ones seem harmless. No need to be brutes.”

The knights were clearly not of the same mind. “All respect, Diviner, but you’ve never been to the Chiming Wood,” said the man behind me. “Or the Fervent Peaks.” He glowered up at the trees. “There’s nothing redemptive about creatures who would happily eat you for breakfast.”

We passed the fallen sprite, its little body unmoving, as if asleep. I had the intrusive desire to lay my palm on it. “He shouldn’t have killed it. It’s lovely. Even in death.”

“Not as lovely as you, Diviner,” Hamelin said.

One snorted and looked over her shoulder. “Didn’t I kiss you last night?”

The second knight laughed. “That was me.” He wielded his smile as well as Hamelin. “I’m Dedrick Lange, from the Seacht. Remember?”

“Oh… yes. Sorry.” One waved a hand in his face. “All you seem the same to me.”

The knights eyed each other, like she’d said something funny, and I knew it was she and I, not themselves, they found indistinguishable.

The abbess strips you of name, face, clothes, distinction… Careful, Number Six. Someone will accuse you of having too much fun up here on this god-awful hill.

I shook my head, but Rory’s voice persisted, a grating tune that didn’t end.

You know of the Omens and signs and how to look down your nose at everyone, but nothing of what really goes on in the hamlets.

… You call wasting your time dreaming of signs living, Diviner?

“Are you married?” I asked abruptly.

Hamelin laughed, drawing looks. “Not even close—”

“Fantastic.” I turned to One. “I’m taking a turn in the grass. Don’t wait for me.”

Her brows lifted over her shroud. “Really?”

“Really.”

I took Hamelin’s hand. He followed me without question, grinning, and the two of us trampled off the road through greenery, slipping away between trees like we, too, were sprites in the glen.

The Diviners whistled, a few knights applauding, as they watched us go.

I doubted Rory was one of them.

I hopped over a fern, lost sight of the road, and then my back was being pressed into a particularly wide beech tree. Hamelin dropped his helmet in the grass, and I withdrew my cloak.

When I kissed him on the mouth, he seemed dazed. Awestruck. Then reason caught him up. He kissed me back, then down my neck, his mouth a stranger upon my skin. “I meant it,” he said, lips drawing up my throat. “You’re lovely. Yesterday’s Divination—” He cupped my breast through my dress. “You looked mythical—practically fearsome. I couldn’t look away. No one could.”

It was a nice thing to say, and it, along with his touch, did nothing to stir me. “Do you need help out of your armor?”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t be knightly of me, begging your assistance.”

“I don’t mind.”

He reached down and caught one of my legs, hooking it over his hip as he pressed me harder into the tree. “Why did you ask if I was married?”

“Wouldn’t want to lie down with a married man.”

“Do Diviners marry?”

Did we? “If we wish to after our ten years are up, I suppose. I haven’t really thought about it—”

Hamelin cut me off with a kiss. Our tongues touched. It was warm, and so was the night air. “Imagine the influence,” he murmured against my mouth, “being wedded to a daughter of Aisling.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t talk.”

He chuckled breathily, his hand rising up my leg. “Sorry. I’m a little overwhelmed.” His teeth grazed my bottom lip. “No one back home in the Peaks is going to believe I fucked a Diviner.”

What little desire I felt fled my body. How rough the tree suddenly felt against my back. How cold his gauntlets over my skin, how brutal his armor between my legs.

I pulled away from the tree so abruptly Hamelin had to brace himself to keep from falling. “What—” His nostrils flared, pupils wide in the dim light. “Are you well?”

“I was under the misconception that it would be good for me, having a bit of fun.” I scrubbed my hands down my wrinkled dress and picked up my cloak. “But I can see I am not suited for this variety of it. Besides”—I kept my voice cold—“I’d rather remain practically fearsome than be someone you fucked in the glen.”

Hamelin tried to grin. “Surely you could be both.”

“Would you still be able to take pleasure, knowing I was not enjoying myself?”

That shut him up, virtue muzzling his desire. He looked so disappointed I almost apologized, but then he said, “Can I at least see your eyes? Or have your name? Some token to prove we were together?”

I left him panting in the glen and hurried back to the road, the colored tents of Coulson Faire beckoning in the distance.

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CHAPTER SIX HIT ME AS HARD AS YOU CAN

Coulson Faire was brilliant. A span of merchant tents in a vast field. On the far side of the field was the great castle that could be none other than Castle Luricht. The king’s castle.

I’d outdistanced Hamelin upon the road, and now walked beneath colorful banners. Writ upon them was the hamlet’s creed: The only portent, the only prosperity—the only god of men—is coin. Beneath it, a coin I knew all too well was depicted. Smooth stone on one side, rough on the other.

I forgot the risk of wandering alone in a place I’d never been, too mesmerized by the colors, the noise, the vivacity of the Faire. Aisling Cathedral suddenly felt as lifeless as a graveyard to this place.

In the distance, pyres burned, dancers moving around them. I could hear the fiddles, drums, but for every tent I passed, the sound of coins falling on counters, coins slapping into palms, coins clinking in pockets, was louder.

Coins, coins, so many coins.

If what the abbess believed was true—that the Omens took corporeal form and visited their hamlets—how the Artful Brigand must grin at his domain. The king’s castle was near, yet it was coin that reigned.

“Toss it. Oh—smooth side up. A good portent. Order more silks.”

“Nay, an uneven sum. A bad sign. Reduce the price or I will work with another vendor.”

“No, I will not pay. The coin fell strangely. I could be ruined.”

I tarried through the Faire, feeling close to Aisling Cathedral still, as if dreaming of falling onto a bed of coins.

Ahead, a few hooded Diviners and their accompanying knights came into view. I hastened after them, only to skid to a stop at the mouth of a stall.

A merchant was there, selling finely carved limestone busts.

“Did you make these yourself?” I asked in wonderment.

He was an aged man with thick knuckles and thinning hair who didn’t look up as he spoke to me. “Why would I sell wares ’sides my own?”

“Just a question.” I leaned close. The nearest bust was of a child, so detailed I could see the tiny chiseled marks between its teeth. “It’s extraordinary work. I wonder—is it a difficult occupation? Working with stone?”

The merchant snorted. “You gonna buy something or not?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Well then, Miss Questions, kindly sod off—”

He finally looked up. Saw me, leaning close to his work. Quick as a flash, he raised his lantern. “Aisling’s waters,” he murmured. “You’re a Diviner.”

He caught my wrist, bobbing up and down in my face, trying to peer under my shroud. “Didn’t mean to tell you to sod off. I’m on hard times, you see. My business, it’s failing.” He wet his lips. “But if a Diviner came to my stall, gave an endorsement, said that the Omens favored me, perhaps? That would be such a blessing.” His voice dropped. “Or maybe let me have a peek at your eyes. Everyone says that that is how the Omens reach you. Through the spring water, into your eyes—”

“That’s not how it works.” My pulse cantered. “Let go of me.”

He didn’t. He reached his other hand to my shroud instead. “Please, Diviner, all I need is a sign—”

And then he was thrown backward, falling with an ungracious thud onto the floor of his stall.

I felt a presence at my back—saw an armored arm. When I turned, my shoulder hit a breastplate.

Two eyes, unfathomably dark, combed my face.

Gods.

Rory didn’t touch his sword. He didn’t even appear angry. And that made him all the more frightening. He spared me one more moment of his attention, then turned it on the fallen merchant, rounding the stall to look down at the man. “What do you think, Maude?” he called. “Shall I take his hands, or his throat?”

I turned. Maude was behind us, along with Three and Five, who both held cups of ale. I couldn’t see their faces, but given the way they kept bringing their cups beneath their hoods, and swaying with laughter, I imagined they found the commotion, and my mortification, wholly delightful.

Maude shrugged. “Why not both?”

“Please.” The merchant whimpered, knuckles bulging as he held his hands in a steeple. “My business. The Diviner offered to—”

“We both know she didn’t offer you anything.” Rory raised his brows at Maude, then schooled his features, turning to me with the solemnity of a hangman upon the gallows. “Well, Diviner? What would you have? His hands or throat or both?”

“Pith, you brute—none! It was a misunderstanding.” My voice was pitched at a shriek. “No need for violence.”

“Of course there is. He put his hands on a holy Diviner.” Rory pulled a knife from his belt and held it over the merchant, who’d begun to whimper. “Any last words?”

My jaw fell open. I was about to throw myself in front of the merchant when I saw the severe turn of Rory’s mouth slip. He wasn’t solemn—he was smiling.

“You’re—” My mouth fell open. “You’re joking?”

Rory let out a low laugh. “Of course, you twit. You think I’d butcher him? In front of everyone? You really don’t know much about knights or Traum or, come to think of it”—he scraped his teeth over his bottom lip—“anything at all, do you, Diviner?”

Three and Five choked on their ale.

“Quit playing, Rory,” Maude said in a lecturing voice.

Suddenly the notion of violence didn’t seem so abhorrent. “You’re an incomparable fiend, Rodrick Myndacious. A truly accomplished asshole.”

Rory spun his blade in an arrogant flourish and dropped it back onto his belt. “Apologies. Just trying to make things fun.” He toed the boot of the trembling merchant. “Mention you saw her, and the next time I come to your stall won’t be so pleasant.”

The merchant let out a sob, and Rory stepped out from his stall, toppling a stone bust as he went.

I stomped toward Three and Five, intending to lead them away, but Maude had already slapped a coin in a passing merchant’s hand and pulled a cup of ale from his tray. When I reached her, she thrust it into my hand. “Ignore him. And drink.”

The ale was crudely warm, slightly sour, but its effect was acute enough. I drank deeply, and a tingle began in my stomach, my teeth, my lips. It felt better than being kissed by Hamelin.

“You shouldn’t be wandering the Faire alone,” Maude said, the picture of calmness. “Where’s your escort knight?”

“Don’t know.” I wiped my lips on the back of my hand, looked into my half-empty cup, and took another swill.

Maude persisted. “Which knight was it?”

“Uh-oh.” Five elbowed Three. “Someone’s getting flogged.”

“She was with Hamelin,” Rory said flatly, procuring his own ale. “They were waylaid in the glen.”

“You noticed me go?” I scoffed into my cup. “How nice.”

“Difficult not to,” Rory bit back. “What with the show you made.”

Like an ill-timed sneeze, Hamelin stepped into the walkway, followed by the rest of the Diviners and their respective knights.

“There you are,” One called, spotting me. She glanced at Hamelin and chuckled. “That was a quick roll in the grass.”

Hamelin turned a violent shade of red, then disappeared behind a row of tents.

Rory downed his ale, tossed his cup on the grass, and stepped after him.

“Ah, ah.” Maude caught his arm. “Wait for me.” She finished her drink, then the two of them quit the walkway, heading after Hamelin—but not before Rory dropped his mouth to my ear.

“Hope he was deferential in his hastiness.”

I watched them slip away, an inferno burning beneath my hood.

Then One was there, oblivious to my ire as she linked her arm in mine. “I fancy a dance.”

The knights led us, and we made our way to one of the pyres at the periphery of the Faire where music played.

“You know,” I said to One. “I think the king and his knights are not as decent as I imagined.”

“Likely not. No one is as decent as they think. Not even us. Not even the abbess.” She ran her hand over the brightly dyed banners that hung over the mouths of tents. “I wouldn’t worry over it. Knights are shooting stars, Six. They come and go. But you and me, our sisterhood of Diviners—we’re the moon.” She smiled. “We’re eternal.”

My spite for Rory, my indignity for Hamelin, quieted. If I am as indistinct as Rodrick Myndacious says, I thought as I looked at the other Diviners, their cloaks and shoeless feet just like mine, what a happy thing to be indistinct from them.

There were more knights by the pyre. Dancers, too. Music caught in the air. A fast tune, strummed by instrumentalists fixed around that blooming fire in the heart of the Faire. “Well.” One squeezed my arm. “Shall we?”

I hesitated, afraid that I was a bad dancer. That I would look stupid or less, somehow, like a Diviner. But no carpet felt finer than being barefoot on grass, and the song—a jovial jig—was telling me it wanted all of me, so I swallowed my timidity, let the other Diviners lead me near the fire, and began to move.

A few knights danced, strangers with happy eyes, but I liked dancing with Diviners best. Hands, skirts, bare feet. The thump, thump, thump of my pulse in perfect time with the music. When we twirled in bold turns near the licking flames, I felt wildly astir. And I wondered why. Why didn’t the Omens speak to me like this? In a melody or a spin or the heartbeat of a drum? Not in the spring, in dreams, where I was in pain and afraid, but like this, loose and infinite, when my soul was split open and thrown skyward in delight.

The songs played on, and the dancers thinned until it was just us Diviners. The pyre, I realized, was surrounded only by knights and the instrumentalists, as if it were our own private gathering. More ale, have pity, was consumed. We Diviners wove together, clasping hands. “This is better than any dream,” One said to me as we spun.

I held her hands in mine so tightly they felt fused together.

It was only when the fiddlers and drummers broke for respite that I realized how late it must be—how far the moon had traveled in the sky.

There was more armor in the field now, the rest of the knighthood having joined us while we were dancing. They drank and laughed in clusters, seated at the rickety wooden tables scattered near the pyre. Maude was there, and so was Hamelin, a shiny new bruise on his jaw that had decidedly not been there when I’d been kissing him.

Rory was there, too, talking with his fellow knights, smiling in a way I’d never seen—without derision.

My pulse stumbled.

A new song began. Be it from the ale or the dancing or the seclusion we felt—alone with the knights in a wide, empty field—one by one, the Diviners began to shed their cloaks. When I dropped mine, it felt like a burden lifted. A skin, shed. Gossamer caught the breeze, and I heard more than one knight let out an awestruck sound as our dresses, white and weightless, wove together.

Then there were hands in mine—a new dance partner. His cheeks were ruddy, his eyes cobalt blue, his smile a crooked line.

“Will you dance with me, Diviner?” King Castor asked.

The others whistled and made kissing sounds as I took the hand of the boy-king.

King Castor, Benji, was surprisingly spry for all that fancy armor, and his hand on my waist was well trained. Either he was working hard not to grasp me too tightly, or he did not want to.

“Are you enjoying your interlude from the tor?” he asked as we spun, my dress whooshing around us.

More than I cared to admit. “It’s my first time away.”

“Really? How marvelous.” The king’s hand clasped mine, and we danced face-to-face. “I know my friend Rory did not give you an easy time about it. And you were right, of course, to force his hand to escort you for a night on the town. He owed you—well, I did.” He laughed, his words half digested, muddled as they came out. He’d clearly been drinking. “What I mean is, thank you for not saying anything about the spring water you found in our possession last night.” He spun me. “I’d like to explain my motives, but I fear it’s one of those things that you must see to believe…” He chuckled. “Rather like the Omens.”

We turned a final time. “I’d like to pay you back in my own way for your discretion,” the king said. “Wouldn’t want you to think me thankless.”

“You should be more concerned with the five bad portents you garnered than winning my esteem, King Castor.”

He laughed, bawdy and boyish.

I scowled.

“Oh, I’m not laughing at you—Six, isn’t it?” He grinned. “I admire your conviction. You’re wildly intimidating. I like that in my friends.”

He wasn’t my friend, and I would have told him so, but the song ended, and the king dropped my hands. “I’d like to pay you back,” he repeated. “If not for your esteem, then for Rory’s truly talented rudeness.” He winked conspiratorially. “How about a little game?”

King Castor swanned back to his knights, stealing a cup of ale and addressing them at a volume only the truly intoxicated can achieve. “Listen up, you ingrates. Before we return the Diviners to Aisling, it’s time for an age-old sport, practiced by even the most dignified knights of old.” He cleared his throat dramatically. “Rodrick Myndacious. Please step forward.”

The knights whistled, chided, and Rory came forward, laughing. It was a heartening sound. Deep and scraping and rich. He was smiling—sickeningly handsome.

His sneers, it seemed, he reserved only for me.

King Castor suddenly looked downright wicked. “Care for a little challenge, my friend?”

Rory’s shoulders were an atlas, every subtle shift a new course charted—annoyance, humor, pointed resignation. Meanwhile the knights, who were practically frothing with glee, began to slam their tin cups upon the table. “Challenge him at his craft,” they shouted. “Challenge him at his craft!”

The Diviners gathered. “What’s this nonsense?” Five asked, bemused.

“Don’t you know?” Maude was there, saddled up next to us, brow damp from dancing. “It’s a tenet of Traum. Every person in every hamlet has a craft. Be it combat or wits or handiness, a challenge to one’s craft is a kind of duel, a test of their skill—and more importantly, their honor. Only the gutless, bereft of honor or merit, deny a challenge.”

Maude rested an arm on my shoulder like we were old friends. “The virtues of knighthood are love, faith, or war. Rory must accept one of those challenges. If he doesn’t, the knights will chase him through the field. Naked.”

“Really.” My gaze sharpened. “And if he accepts the challenge?”

“If he loses, he does whatever Benji tells him to. If he wins”—she shook her head, smiling at the king—“Benji will have to strip and run naked instead.”

Three grinned. “Sounds like a happy ploy to get everyone’s clothes off.”

“Bless the knighthood.” Four cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. “Challenge him at his craft!”

Rory folded his arms over his chest—said something I could not hear. The knighthood went wild with applause.

“Oh-ho! Challenge it is.” King Castor stepped farther into the field. “All right, Rodrick Myndacious. I challenge you to your knightly craft of war. I say you cannot keep your footing against three assaults. If you can, I’ll happily concede my loss, shed my clothes, and howl at the moon. But if you falter a step or are knocked from your feet”—the king’s blue gaze found me in the crowd—“you must return to Aisling and have your future Divined.”

Next to me, Maude was grinning. “This should be good.”

“He won’t do it,” I said, clipped. “The man has made no secret of his revulsion for Aisling, for the Omens, for Diviners.” For me.

“I don’t know,” Maude said. “He might surprise you yet.”

“Well?” King Castor drank heartily from his cup. “Will you be stripping, Myndacious?”

“Three assaults to knock me off my feet?” Rory came closer. Smacked the king’s ale out of his hand. “Fine, you git, I accept.” He crossed his arms and planted his feet wide. “So long as I choose from whom.”

Another cheer echoed across the field.

King Castor clapped, then rubbed his hands together. “I may be seeing double, but I can still knock you over.”

“Not you.” Rory turned toward the pyre. When his gaze landed on us, Diviners all in a row, it narrowed. “Them.”

All eyes turned our way. And I understood then why Rory had called me a spectacle the moment we’d met. The knights were looking at us exactly how they’d looked at me yesterday when I’d Divined for the king. Rapt. Anticipating amazement.

Wanting a good show.

“Marvelous,” King Castor called. “And to sweeten the deal—” He extracted a sash from a nearby knight, then moved behind Rory. “He’ll have his hands tied.”