Cavor’s lip curled—this ordeal sounded like a tame thing—and he looked back at Maximilian. “I see you have corrupted the Manteceros with your cowardly concerns, pretender. If you have no stomach for a challenge—a duel—then speak so now. I’m sure those here to witness will understand.”
Maximilian risked a quick look at the faces about him. If he backed down now yet still won whatever kind of ordeal the Manteceros thought to administer then he would never gain their respect. They would always remember him as the man too cowardly to take on Cavor. Too afraid to risk trial by sword.
“I had no other intent than to follow the speaking of my challenge with the sweep of my sword, Cavor. A duel to the death it is.”
“Oh,” the Manteceros exclaimed, angered by the two men’s stubborn desire to settle this with swords rather than words. “I really don’t know about—”
Maximilian looked at the Manteceros. “Don’t you see why I have to do this?” he asked softly. “I offered the challenge. I cannot back down now.”
The Manteceros held Maximilian’s gaze, then acquiesced with a curt nod. “I cannot approve, but I do understand.” Its blue eyes flickered over both Cavor and Maximilian. “But so too must both the claimants understand that as they refuse to be persuaded from this duel, neither will I be persuaded from administering the ordeal. Do you understand?”
Both men nodded, their actions as terse as the Manteceros’ voice.
The other cloaked figure who had stepped out behind Maximilian now moved to the Manteceros and stroked its neck soothingly. The creature relaxed, and Cavor spared the figure a curious glance.
But he had no time for an overlong look. “You challenged me,” he said to Maximilian, “and thus I hold the right to name the weapons.”
Maximilian inclined his head.
Cavor smiled. Maximilian had only been a boy when he was thrown into the Veins, and would have had only limited training before that. And seventeen years in which to lose what training he did have.
“I name the long sword, wish-hunter.” Cavor grinned in triumph. The long sword not only took extraordinary strength, but also required finely honed and practised skills. Even if Maximilian could lift his weapon, he would not have the skill to survive Cavor’s first thrust.
Maximilian accepted the decision, knowing why Cavor had chosen that weapon. “Then it rests to me to name the place,” he said, and Cavor nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes.”
Maximilian smiled, as cold an effort as any managed by Cavor. “Then I name the Veins, Cavor. Beneath the hanging wall.”
Silence.
Silence, and then Cavor spoke, his voice as harsh as an arctic dust storm. “I name Egalion as my companion.”
Startled, for Egalion knew that Cavor should have good reason to be enraged by his earlier refusal to seize Maximilian when ordered, the commander recovered quickly. Best he be there. He nodded.
Maximilian thought, but he did not have to think long. He raised his head towards the platform and smiled with genuine sweetness, incongruous in this atmosphere. “Garth, will you stand at my back as companion?”
Even more startled than Egalion, Garth similarly nodded. Then he laughed. “If I still have a head.”
Before either Cavor or Maximilian could respond, the Manteceros stepped forward. “Cavor, you have tried and condemned these two men on the assumption Maximilian is merely a pretender. Until the issue is decided they must be released.”
Cavor shot the two Baxtors a look of pure hatred, but he agreed with a brief nod of his head.
“And you two,” the Manteceros continued. “If you are released, will you promise to submit to Cavor’s judgement if he wins through?”
Joseph let himself relax fully for the first time in days. “Yes, Manteceros. We will.” Then he looked at his son and grinned; nothing could blunt the exuberance and sheer joy of life snatched back from the very edge of the executioner’s axe.
“Well,” said the Manteceros to Cavor and Maximilian. “Don’t think you two will be going off without me. If I have to duck sword strokes to administer the ordeal, then so be it. Now,” and he turned to the cloaked figure by his side, “Ravenna, everyone else seems to have picked a companion for this nonsense, and so shall I. Will you accompany me?”
“Gladly, sweet creature,” she said, and kissed the Manteceros’ nose, the hood falling back from her head as she did so. “Gladly.”
It wasn’t until early evening, when the date for the duel had been set and well after the crowd had dispersed to discuss the day’s events about fires and ale jugs, that Cavor and Maximilian independently realised that neither yet had any idea what type of ordeal the Manteceros meant to administer.
Cavor spent an hour frowning into the ashes of his fireplace; in his chair in the order’s headquarters, Maximilian turned his head aside…and smiled.
TWENTY SIX
A SAD, SAD TALE
They had a week to prepare and travel to the Veins, and each man used that week as best he saw fit to ensure his triumph.
Maximilian spent the nights sleeping soundly and long, while the days he spent on his knees in prayer or meditation, or speaking gently with Ravenna, whose conversation he enjoyed.
Cavor spent time doing none of these things, but he did spend many hours closeted with Fennon Furst—who left for the Veins two days ahead of either Cavor or Maximilian—or in the palace courtyard at weapon practice, his long sword whispering viciously through the air.
No-one saw the Manteceros, but no-one doubted that it would appear as needed.
Four days after the aborted execution in City Square the two men made final preparations to travel (independently) to the Veins. Cavor left early one morning, escorted by the larger portion of Escator’s standing army.
Maximilian left at noon, his escort consisting only of those who had believed in him enough to rescue him from beneath the hanging wall, while the majority of the Order of Persimius followed Maximilian’s party in several well-appointed wagons.
Behind them, at a respectful distance of some two hundred paces, came the first in a column of almost fourteen thousand people from Ruen and surrounding districts. They could sense that not only would the duel in the Veins decide a throne, it would also birth a legend, and they wanted to be there to witness.
And all this time laboured thousands of men in the Veins, their bodies glistening with sweat and gloam and despair, and they had no idea of the drama about to be played out in their midst.
Along the coasts and in the underground caverns and chasms, throbbed the sea, watching, wanting, probing…seeking, seeking, seeking…
Myrna was overflowing with people, loud conversation and whispered rumour. The dreary town had never felt so alive: Anya and her girls locked the front door—who could think of business when such events as these beckoned?—and leaned from windows thrown wide open, eyes and voices wondering, their bright smiles and scarves drifting in the breeze blowing in from the sea.
The army lay encamped and encircled about Myrna and the Veins; beyond them sprawled the makeshift camps of the thousands who had walked from Ruen, their numbers swelled by further hundreds who’d come east and south from the northern countryside. When he arrived, Cavor and his immediate entourage accepted Fennon Furst’s hospitality; Maximilian, with the Baxtors, Ravenna and three or four of the Order of Persimius, made full use of the physicians’ quarters.
On the second day after all had arrived, mediators from both groups made arrangements for the duel; on the third day Cavor and Maximilian prepared to go down the Veins.
Cavor allowed Egalion to buckle on his weapon belt, then asked the man to wait for him outside. As Egalion left the room, Cavor made a show of checking the straps on the light armour he wore, then adjusted the weapon belt about his hips. The long sword felt satisfactorily weighty swinging against his left leg, and Cavor’s mouth curled in a tight smile. For almost forty years he’d trained with this weapon, and he’d never been fitter; since Maximilian had made his claim in the Pavilion the mark on his arm had healed completely. Cavor felt nothing but strength suffuse his body. Even if he would be fighting in the stinking cloyness of the Veins, he would prevail. His smile widened.
From his shadowed corner Fennon Furst saw the smile and stepped forward. “You will win, sire.”
Cavor’s face hardened. “In whatever manner I have to, Furst. Have you…?”
Furst bowed slightly. “All is prepared, sire.”
Cavor relaxed slightly. “Good. Then let us go and dispose of this wishful dreamer once and for all.”
Maximilian prepared in much the same ritualistic manner that he’d made his claim. Attended only by Garth, he spent an hour in prayer after he rose, breakfasted lightly, then bathed and dressed in nothing but linen breeches. Even his feet he left bare.