The crowd clapped and cheered. Ferrin raised his hands in acknowledgment. Aefric merely smiled and nodded to the crowd.

  Herewyn raised one hand, and the crowd grew silent.

  “Both men sped across the challenge field with grace and agility.”

  She paused, waiting for another round of applause to die down.

  “I was not yet baroness, the last time anyone attempted the contest of agility on this wall,” she continued. “But I kept the count for my father, and I can tell you the winner needed one hundred twenty claps to complete the course. The loser … stumbled to the battlements in his hurry to turn at the gate for the last time.”

  She gestured toward Aefric and Ferrin.

  “But today, neither man stumbled. And neither man needed as much time. Count Ferrin completed the course in a mere ninety-three claps. And Duke Aefric completed it in eighty-nine.”

  The crowd cheered, but Ferrin looked furious. Aefric raised a calming hand, but frowned. She couldn’t be trying to give Aefric the victory…

  Herewyn called for silence again, and gave Ferrin a look that made him grudgingly hold his tongue.

  “But these two were not content with speed alone,” Herewyn said. “To honor Dereth Sehk, they made the challenge even greater. They had to avoid knocking off these spiked helmets.”

  She held aloft the helmet.

  “No small things, eh?” she said, smiling, and the crowd made appreciative noises.

  “Alas, for all their speed, only one of our two racers completed the final course without knocking down a helmet. And thus, our winner is his excellency, Count Ferrin Ol’Nylla of Motte!”

  The crowd cheered so loudly that the sound became physical pressure once again. And Count Ferrin stood there, hands held high, savoring his victory.

  As the applause died down, the crowd began to turn away. Eager to be about their own contests, and win their own accolades that day.

  Ferrin turned back to Aefric with a gloating look in his eye. But whatever he’d meant to say then, it died on his lips as he took in Aefric’s broad smile.

  “Well done, Ferrin,” Aefric said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Speed and precision both, and you made it look elegant. Very impressive.”

  “Thank you … your grace,” Ferrin said, giving the impression of a dog expecting to be kicked any moment now. But he drew in a breath, and with only a slight grimace said, “Your grace performed far better than I expected, I must admit. I thought for a moment I might lose.”

  “Glad to have given you competition.”

  “If I may ask…” Ferrin said, letting the words trail off as though honestly seeking permission.

  “You may,” Aefric said, with an encouraging nod. So far this was the best experience he’d had with Ferrin, and he hoped to prolong the goodwill.

  “How did your grace do that? Your grace looked as though he were running for his life.”

  “Ferrin, have you ever had to flee an ancient, angry dragon through a collapsing mountain tunnel?”

  “Of course not,” Ferrin said. “Has anyone?”

  Aefric nodded. “Fleeing for my life with uncertain footing. Made for a vivid memory, to help me focus.”

  Ferrin didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so Aefric clapped him on the shoulder again.

  “Have you ever enjoyed a fall slowed by magic?” Aefric asked, taking the Brightstaff in hand once more, and returning to Ferrin his heavy gold chain, with its medallion of Motte’s sigil.

  “No, your grace,” Ferrin said, slipping the chain around his neck.

  “Join me, then,” Aefric said, and wrapped them both in a spell that would see them falling no faster than leaves from a maple tree.

  Aefric stepped out over the courtyard. Ferrin followed just a heartbeat behind, as though making sure this would work. But together, the two drifted slowly and safely to the granite path in the courtyard below, while the knights and nobles descended the stairs.

  Ferrin gave Aefric the most sincere smile he’d seen from his vassal yet.

  “That was fun!” he said, laughing.

  “Your grace has never shared that spell with me,” Sighild said, stepping up with Herewyn beside her and Beornric only a step behind. The Knights of the Lake — and Aefric’s four temporary servants — followed.

  “Then before I leave for Water’s End,” Aefric said, “we shall, all four of us, enjoy the spell together.” He pointed up to the top of Herewyn’s tower. “From there.”

  “That’s safe?” Ferrin asked.

  “I assure you,” Aefric said. “I mastered the spell long ago. Four at once for a fall like that is easily handled.”

  “What about from the Spike?” Sighild asked, referring to the tallest of the Seven Great Spires of Water’s End.

  Dizzying, the view from the top of the Spike. This would be a fall of many hundreds of feet.

  “I wouldn’t want to try more than two at a time from a height like that,” Aefric said. “And I’d have to be one of them, directing the fall, or you might end up in the lake.”

  Sighild gave Aefric an expectant smile.

  “We’ll see what we can arrange on your next visit,” he said.

  “Thank you, your grace,” she said, and Aefric knew well the look in her eye. She wanted a kiss. But Aefric wasn’t sure that was appropriate, here in front of so many. It might be taken as a statement rather than a gesture of affection.

  “Your lordship,” Ferrin said, looking a little more formal as he turned to Herewyn. “May I have a word?”

  “Of course, your excellency,” she answered, looking curious, and the two of them stepped off to one side.

  “Can we get something to eat now?” Aefric asked. “I’m starving.”

  Sighild laughed. “Of course, your grace. But no sit-down meals today. Only what we can get from vendors around town.”

  “I could fetch something for your grace,” Bess said, while Kian stepped forward and echoed the sentiment.

  “It’ll keep, for now,” Aefric said. “Wait until” — he turned to Sighild — “we’re out there among the crowd?”

  “That’s right,” she said, smiling. “As nobles, we’re expected to walk among the crowd, watching contests, judging, if asked, and occasionally bestowing small gifts.”

  “I thought,” Aefric started, but Sighild paled and cut in quickly.

  “Not for winning,” she said, hands raised as though to stop Aefric from committing some great faux pas. “The gifts are to acknowledge great effort on the part of competitors. In fact, we are only to give them to those who lose while striving valiantly, or to both winner and loser together to acknowledge a great contest. But never just to the winner.”

  “Winning is its own reward?” Aefric asked. “In the honor of Dereth Sehk, I mean.”

  “Just so, your grace,” Sighild said.

  “Fair enough,” Aefric said, glancing over at where Ferrin and Herewyn were conversing in hushed voices.

  “I suspect,” Sighild said softly, “he is apologizing for making that challenge.”

  “What was wrong with it?” Aefric asked, just as quietly.

  “Strictly speaking, nothing,” Sighild said. “But tradition allows the host to make the first challenge, if a noble of higher rank is present.”

  “Last year,” Arras said, and Aefric realized the Knights of the Lake had closed ranks a bit, “Baroness Herewyn challenged Prince Killian to a contest of riddles.”

  “She won handily,” Sighild said, smiling. “As I suspect she expected to do so again in a challenge against your grace.”

  “And Ferrin stepped on her fun, by cutting in and challenging first,” Aefric said, nodding. “I hope he is apologizing then.”

  “Already done, your grace,” Ferrin said, as he and Herewyn returned to the group.

  “And accepted,” Herewyn said, in tones that made clear that she considered the matter closed.

  While the other nobles who’d been up on the wall for the commencement were already passing through the now-open gate and out into town, Aefric noticed that a dozen knights approached, along with a half-dozen soldiers, and a dozen servants.

  It seemed that Herewyn, Ferrin and Sighild would each have an armed escort, as well as pairs of porters and servants.

  Herewyn and Sighild discussed this, while Aefric looked over Ferrin’s knights.

  He recognized their leader. Ser Pemith, with her hard, but handsome features, her light brown skin and strong brown eyes.

  Aefric remembered her as loyal to Ferrin, but true enough to place honor ahead of loyalty, when pressed by a righteous cause.

  Good to see that Ferrin still held her in high esteem, given that Aefric had forced her to stand down twice this past spring.

  She handed Ferrin a small pouch of purple velvet.

  Ferrin drew a deep breath, looking for all the world like a man screwing up his courage, and stepped forward.

  “Your grace was good enough to meet me in a challenge that played to my strengths, rather than his own. A challenge I will confess to having practiced in the aetts approaching the Feast.”

  Ferrin gave a surprisingly honest-looking chagrined smile.

  “And despite this,” he continued, “your grace put forth the kind of effort that would have made Dereth Sehk proud. And came quite close to winning.”

  He shook his head in wonder.

  “I cannot let such efforts go unacknowledged,” he said. “I know that her lordship intended to reward your grace’s efforts with a gift of her own. But I have persuaded her that any reward would be more meaningful coming from the victor.”

  He held the purple velvet pouch out to Aefric.

  “Please, your grace. Accept this with my compliments, and no little admiration.”

  “Thank you, your excellency,” Aefric said, hoping that formality was appropriate at the moment.

  Setting the Brightstaff aside for a moment, he opened the pouch, and pulled out a small statue of a black bull. It looked to have been carved from onyx, with tiny flecks of rubies for its eyes.

  “Your grace knows, of course, that the symbol of Motte is the black bull,” Ferrin said. “And so I come to the Feast with many small black bulls to give as gifts. Most of them are carved from ebony or blackwood. But I bring exactly one jewel, in case someone truly impresses me.”

  He bowed to Aefric. “Your grace has truly impressed me today. By accepting a challenge he had to know I’d trained for. By striving to his utmost. And most of all, by being gracious in defeat, even though … even though I have in the past not given your grace cause to think well of me.”

  Ferrin offered Aefric his hand.

  Aefric kissed it.

  And then for the first time, Ferrin pressed his forehead to Aefric’s knuckles.

  The nobles split up as they moved out of Herewyn’s courtyard and into Asarchai proper. Each going into town a different direction, so that as many of the common folk as possible would get to have a noble witness their challenges. Or even judge their challenges, if victory was subjective.

  And Aefric quickly learned that those challenges came in many, many varieties.

  He saw footraces run both forward and backward, and while hopping on one foot. Games of throwing at targets — sometimes with knives or axes or darts, but also with small rocks, large stones, and in one case what looked like denuded tree trunks.

  Wrestling competitions, tests of balance and strength. Tests of endurance and will — though Aefric found those latter the least interesting.

  How could anyone be expected to simply stand and watch a handful of people do nothing more interesting than stand one-footed on narrow, often pointed stumps?

  Especially when all around a noisy sea of humanity cheered and heckled other tests, shouted and laughed, ate and drank and pressed every which way.

  But Aefric took watching those endurance challenges as his duty, because otherwise the only witnesses were a scant few who had personal attachment to the competitors.

  Not that all of the contests were physical. Some people strove with riddles, or puzzles, or with their knowledge of history or the gods.

  There were contests of painting and sketching and carving. Of music and instrumentation. Of singing and poetry.

  Sometimes those latter contests involved skalds and professional musicians, but often the competitors were amateur lovers of music and poetry.

  In short, if it could be accomplished in a reasonable timeframe, it was grist for challenges in Asarchai that day.

  Of greatest note, to Aefric at least, was that among the seemingly endless variety of challenges, none involved weapons. Except those that could be thrown at targets.

  Even jugglers weren’t allowed to juggle blades or fire. Not while engaged in a contest that day.

  Aefric reminded himself to ask later about the origin of this tradition. It was one thing to say that Dereth Sehk forbade his soldiers from dueling, and that they were to save their weapons for the enemy.

  But it was another thing altogether to say that knights were not allowed to joust with blunted tips, nor engage in melees with practice swords, or something similar.

  It was no wonder his Knights of the Lake didn’t seem frustrated at spending the day guarding their duke, instead of engaging in contests.

  Why, Aefric didn’t see so much as a single bow or crossbow shooting competition.

  Why allow people to throw knives and axes at targets, but not shoot arrows?

  Nevertheless, the air buzzed with excitement and joy. And new contests seemed to spring up endlessly.

  Hardly the first hour passed before Aefric realized why he needed servants out there. He was kept so busy as witness and occasional judge that he would never have gotten so much as a bite of food or a sip of drink if he didn’t have two servants at the ready to make sure he didn’t go hungry or thirsty.

  In fact, it was the second time that they were returning to refresh him — this time with a leg of roast turkey and a skin of honeyed mead — when he caught Bess taking a bite of the turkey and Kian a sip of the mead.

  When they bowed and handed Aefric their goods, he paused them with an upraised hand.

  “Are you serving as tasters?” he asked.

  “They are,” Beornric said, taking the turkey leg and skin of mead from them as he took over their part of the conversation. “Your grace must realize that it would be too easy to poison him here, without tasters.”

  “Is this your order then?”

  “No, your grace,” Beornric said, and though his words were easy, his expression was resolute. “Her lordship gave them their orders, and your grace will find that the servants attending each other noble today are filling the same role. The baroness would be a poor host if she allowed her guests to be poisoned by their enemies.”

  Aefric frowned, and looked around.

  He knew his Knights of the Lake had established a circle around him, within which he, Beornric, and the servants and porters could walk unmolested.

  But he hadn’t noticed that they all had their weapons drawn. Held point down, yes, but drawn and ready all the same.

  And he hadn’t realized the watchful way his knights surveyed the crowd. As though Aefric were moving not among a crowd of revelers celebrating an ancient hero, but among a crowd of potential … what … assassins?

  Looking a little further afield now, he spotted soldiers of his personal guard out among the crowd as well. Their weapons remained sheathed, but they were clearly watching for threats, and coordinating with his knights.

  “Is this because of Princess Sorcha’s appearance yesterday?” Aefric asked. “Or did you never intend to give the knights a break from guard duty for the Feast?”

  “Those recent attempts on the royal family were almost successful,” Beornric said. “I have no intention of allowing your grace to be assassinated on my watch.”

  Aefric nodded. He called Bess forward, and let her hold the turkey leg and mead for him.

  Aefric’s previous snack — a small, flaky, very juicy meat pie — he’d eaten while paused, so that he could use both hands, and let the Brightstaff stand beside him while he enjoyed his snack.

  Now, though, Beornric’s words had cast something of a pall over the afternoon. And he didn’t want the Brightstaff from his hand for a moment. Just in case.

  So now he had Bess hold the mead while he gnawed on the turkey leg, and hold the turkey leg while he sipped the honey mead.

  He kept moving, this time, as he ate and drank. And though he continued to watch contests throughout the afternoon — judging every time he was asked, and occasionally bestowing small gifts when he was truly impressed — he also kept his own eyes roving for threats.

  Just in case.

  If anyone tried to assassinate Aefric that day, he didn’t spot it happening. He never saw his knights or soldiers so much as raise their weapons. And Bess and Kian, despite tasting everything he sampled that day, never so much as coughed.

  Nevertheless, thoughts of assassins diminished Aefric’s enjoyment of the festivities as the afternoon wore on. So he was more than a little glad to find himself escorted back through the gates at Herewyn’s keep just as the sun was beginning to set over the cliffs that separated Norra from Felspark.

  Torches were already lit in the courtyard, mounted on stakes beside the wide granite path between the gate and the tower. Aefric noted that the number of soldiers walking the walls hadn’t diminished. If anything, there were more up there now than there had been when he’d left.

  The other nobles began filing into the courtyard as well, including Ferrin, who looked positively exhilarated by his experiences that day. He was laughing and joking with Pemith as he came through the gates with his knights and servants.

  Sighild came back into the courtyard ahead of her own guards and servants with a bounce in her step and a smile on her face. She looked so happy that the Keifer part of Aefric almost thought she should have cartoon birds twittering about her.

  Cartoon birds. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought of cartoons, let alone cartoon birds.