There were a lot of people out at the training yard, despite the fact that it was getting to be evening, and normally these people would have gone home to the village or wherever they resided. But it seemed everyone was eager to see the final round of this tournament.
Of all the things Steven had been asked to do today, this was the one he was most confident about. He'd done a lot of sparring even prior to becoming a knight, and since his appointment he'd seen off his fair share of challengers and troublemakers in duels. Thus he was a fairly decent fighter and knew it. The only trouble now was that he didn't feel terribly well.
His nap had helped somewhat, but he hadn't finished it, as Amie had come in and interrupted. Not only that, but her harsher words had a peculiar sting to them which Steven didn't entirely understand, this in addition to the fact that they had been too loud for his hungover mind.
Steven felt the spell hit. It felt like fire, but not unpleasantly for some reason. There was light, and again that tingling feeling. Steven did notice the difference this time, because it seemed like everyone was slightly slowed down. It was actually a little disorienting. He wished he'd been able to get out of having this second spell cast on him, not only because he didn't like having spells cast on him, or even because he didn't like the feeling of cheating, but also because this spell was actually throwing him off a little, which he really didn't need right now.
This was especially true since, in addition to the bed and fancy fireplace, Steven had gone to the village to find some nicer armor than the cheap chain-mail he'd brought with him when he became a knight. What he had now was much stouter stuff than the old chain-mail, but it was almost twice as heavy. Since the cast spell seemed to be making everything slower (or Steven faster), the extra not-quite-familiar weight made things worse, and he wished he'd kept his chain-mail so he could switch to that now. The sacrifice of weight for defense was one reason Freedonia needed access to Advorton's armor, which was a great deal lighter than what Steven was wearing now, but very nearly as strong.
Sir Geoffrey was, of course, outfitted in the traditional Advortonian Scale, and carrying its matching blade, a huge, funny looking scimitar, known for being extremely light and easy to use, allowing its wielder to strike faster and more precisely. Steven found himself wishing he'd bought a better sword instead of better armor, as the blade he had now was aggressively average in comparison to the Precision Scimitar Sir Geoffrey was carrying.
After each champion signaled his readiness to the other, the duel began. Steven was instantly aware of the fact that he was hopelessly outmatched, not because Sir Geoffrey was the superior fighter, but because Sir Geoffrey could move. Steven's own heavy armor slowed him down, even as the spell Amie had cast wreaked havoc on his perception, causing him to mistime the swing of his sword.
Steven had learned long ago the art of aiming for where his target was going to be instead of where they were currently. Because his perception of time was screwed up, and his arm moved faster than it seemed like it ought to be moving, Steven missed Sir Geoffrey entirely. He missed several times, and found himself flashing back to the brief skirmish with Sir Stabsalot, only with reversed rolls.
But Sir Geoffrey did more than simply carry on when Steven missed. Sir Geoffrey, albeit in apparently slowed fashion, was flashing in and out and around. He was here, he was there, he was everywhere, he was nowhere in particular. The motion, and trying to track motion visually, made Steven's hangover worse and he began to feel dizzy and fatigued. In a smattering of seconds, Steven had been knocked down. In a few more, he was knocked down again. Each time he hit the ground, an explosion of air escaped him, and it took more effort to get up each time due to the heaviness of the armor he wore and his own increasing weariness.
Sir Geoffrey waited politely for Steven to get up, only to smash him right back down again. Finally, there came a time when he knocked down Steven with enough force that Steven was unable to rally in the allotted recovery time, giving Sir Geoffrey the victory.
Before the crowd could even start cheering, a voice rang out, "Best two out of three!"
Struggling to his feet, feeling extremely bruised, Steven looked around for the source of the cry. He found Amie standing there, holding her staff tightly. With a casual air that was quite forced, she strolled over to him, while the physician from Advorton went to Sir Geoffrey.
"It's only a scratch," Amie assured Steven, barely looking at him, "You can take him. Just... trying hitting him at least once. You'll find it easier to do after the first time."
"Thanks," Steven muttered sarcastically, "I'll do that."
Amie nodded, seemingly to herself, and strolled back to her place in the crowd.
Sir Geoffrey seemed more than ready to have another go at Steven. Gamely, but with diminishing confidence, Steven squared off to face Sir Geoffrey again.
For a moment, it seemed this duel would go better, as Steven's fatigue actually worked to his advantage. Sir Geoffrey expected him to move and went for an attack, which missed because Steven had not yet reached the point where Sir Geoffrey expected him to be. This left Sir Geoffrey himself open to attack. As he had done with Sir Stabsalot (albeit much more easily) Steven grabbed Sir Geoffrey by the arm, and used the man's own weight and momentum against him to throw Sir Geoffrey to the ground. Steven stepped back to give Sir Geoffrey a moment to recover.
But Sir Geoffrey was on his feet again almost immediately, and Steven knew from then on that the fight would not go his way this time either. In fact, it went worse than before. Sir Geoffrey not only managed to parry Steven's every thrust, but he overestimated Steven's ability to dodge (or perhaps Steven's armor's ability to protect him), and inflicted a serious wound when he slashed across Steven's midsection with his scimitar, which cut through the armor and found a home in Steven's body.
Steven continued to fight even after that, but it was this blow which ended his chance of victory. Sir Geoffrey had little trouble knocking him to the ground with enough force that Steven was unable to recover his wind quickly enough to get up. The second duel went to Sir Geoffrey.
Bleeding badly and feeling like he was about to die, Steven nonetheless dragged himself back to his feet, this time anticipating Amie's cry, "Three out of five!"
What he did not anticipate was Sir Geoffrey turning it down. He'd never heard of anyone from Advorton turning down the chance to fight, whether it was a duel or a brawl, regardless of whether or not there would be a fair contest between them and their opponent.
"I cannot accept those terms," Sir Geoffrey said, "For I fear I might slay your champion by mistake if I fought him again in his present state. However, I will offer this: because of the courage Captain Steven has shown here, and because he has won two parts of the tournament already, I shall return when he is well and his armor repaired or replaced, and I will fight him on even terms then."
That was all Steven heard, for he promptly fell over and passed out from blood loss.
Late that night, after the crowd had dispersed, and after Steven had picked himself up and dragged himself home to bed, Steven woke up to find that even a severe beating was not enough to cure him of insomnia. Disgruntled, tired and in pain, he hobbled over to the fireplace, made himself something to eat and went into the foyer. It occurred to him that having a table and chair in his room would not be amiss, though he wasn't quite sure how to fit them in there properly.
Besides which, what he really wanted right now was a bathtub to soak in. That would feel good right about now. But he'd have to look into that door lock Amie had talked about, because he really didn't want to find himself trying to relax in a tub next time there was an unscheduled party in his room. In fact, he didn't really want another unscheduled party in his room, with or without the tub.
Seeing the door to the barracks opening, Steven tensed involuntarily. It didn't particularly surprise him to see Amie, who he was beginning to think never slept.
"You really do have a problem, don't you?" she observed as she entered.
She seemed to be in one of her gentler moods, but Steven didn't trust that, and he wasn't sure that he didn't prefer her when she was hostile, because at least then she wasn't trying to offer sympathy, which only made Steven feel self-conscious and embarrassed.
Frustrated at the day's losses, and his inability to sleep, Steven spoke before he could stop himself, snapping sourly, "Don't you think you've done enough?"
"Me?" she blinked, then scowled and her voice turned nasty, "I didn't do anything wrong today. My spells worked, and so did that potion. I did my job. And I tried to make sure you got a another shot at doing yours after you screwed it up the first time and the second. You're welcome by the way."
"Your spell threw me off," Steven said, "That's why I couldn't hit anything."
"You sure it wasn't your armor?" Amie shot back, "No joke, that suit looks big enough to make into a whaling boat. You didn't tell me you were wearing Goliath's armor to fight. I might have researched a spell for strength or balance or something, because speed was not your problem."
"You never asked me if I even needed a spell to help me in the last round of the tournament," Steven pointed out, "You just went and cast it."
"What was I supposed to think? You can't play kingball, you don't know how to drink properly, how was I supposed to know you could swing a sword without somebody to hold it for you?" Amie demanded, "Look, you asked for my help, and I gave it to you. I only just came to Freedonia a couple of days ago, and suddenly I've got some stranger knocking on my door and asking me to engage in a shady government takeover. But did I kick up a fuss?"
"Yes!" Steven reminded her, "You tried to curse me."
"And did you let me do that?"
"Of course not!" Steven snapped irritably, then flinched as his exuberant remark disturbed the wound to his midsection.
"And yet I got over that, didn't I? I even apologized," Amie said.
Annoyed, and realizing that sensible argument would not get him anywhere, Steven tried a new tactic, "What did you come here for? It's the middle of the night."
"I finished my meditating early," Amie replied, "So I figured I'd go to the village and look for a better staff," she shook the staff she held, "This one tends to backfire. Anyway, I decided to stop by and ask if you wanted anything."
Talking to this woman was like talking to an uncouth person who told a good joke and then in the next breath said something appalling. Steven felt like he was going on an adventure every time he spoke to Adept Amie, and he was not in the least adventurous by nature. The sudden reversals of apparent mood and intent were enough to make one feel dizzy, especially if they were already suffering a massive laceration and acute inability to sleep. Steven was annoyed with Amie, embarrassed by her needling him for his weakness and incompetency, but at the same time he was touched that she had this apparent concern for him. It was incredibly confusing.
When Steven remained silent, Amie seemed to take it that he was having trouble thinking (he was), and she began to offer suggestions, "I don't have a lot of money, but I'm sure I could get you some cabbages and mushrooms to go with your bear meat and the frankly ridiculous amount of potatoes you seem to have. Or maybe a book of ale recipes?"
"No thank you," Steven said flatly, "If I never see a pint of ale again, it will be too soon."
"Fair," Amie acknowledged, "But you did give me that lovely venison and rabbit meat, and I feel like I should get you something to pay you back."
"That was a gift, not a trade," Steven replied, "I had meat to spare. Since you can't hunt in the forest and I didn't think you had much money, I figured you could use some meat. You don't owe me anything for that."
At this, Amie cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. It was as if it had never occurred to her that someone could do something nice without expecting her to do something nice back.
Finally, she said, "You're a strange man, Captain Steven."
"And a tired one," Steven sighed wearily, "So you should go do your shopping, and I should go back to bed."
With a shrug, Amie turned and left without another word.
Steven was relieved the next morning to find that the day's tasks were relatively easy, physically speaking. Mentally they would be more taxing, as one of them involved strategizing with Greta because she and Krispin were apparently not on speaking terms right now.
But first he decided to go to the training yard. He was regretting scheduling a combat training exercise for his guards, but it was too late to back out now. The training yard had never seemed so far away as it did this morning as he limped slowly in the direction of the scene of yesterday's humiliating defeat. Even though he was late, Steven found his guards were there, already practicing under the rather inept instruction of Rupert, who seemed relieved to see Steven coming to take over.
It kind of surprised him that his loss the day before had not done anything to reduce the respect his guards showed him. He supposed that, even if he seemingly wasn't as good as Sir Geoffrey, they still knew well enough that he was much more skilled as a fighter than any of them.
If nothing else, he was well capable of thrashing the lot of them if he got any backtalk, which was something he'd demonstrated early in his career when the guards bucked the schedule he imposed. Before Steven had been appointed as Freedonia's knight, the guards had done basically whatever pleased them. Security had consequently been extremely lax, and most of the guards had resented the change in leadership, and having to actually work for their pay.
These days it was taken as wrote that some number of guards would be posted near the forest, along the route to the village and in the castle itself every day and at night to deal with any bandits or assassins who might try to set up shop around the kingdom.
It was rapidly apparent that the training session was the least of Rupert's concerns, as he set up the other guards to spar with each other and then drew Steven aside, ostensibly to ask for a few tips. But really he had something else on his mind entirely.
"I tried reading my poem to Rhianwen after you won the drinking contest yesterday -congratulations by the way- and now she won't even speak to me!"
Steven did not find this at all surprising. Normally, he would simply have tried to comfort his friend, and let Rupert recover from his rejection in the usual fashion. But just now he was in a lot of pain, and still stinging from his double loss in dueling yesterday, he was out here for a training session, and all he really wanted was to go back to lying on his bed. And he had a "strategy" session with Greta to look forward to as well. He was in no mood to be tactful.
"Look," Steven snapped, causing a startled expression to manifest on Rupert's face, "Your elaborate schemes have never worked. So I have an idea. Why don't you guard the path to the village? Rhianwen has to go to the village to sell her poems and plays, right? So protect her from bandits, and maybe try a little casual conversation for once in your life."
Rupert blinked at him silently, as if this was too novel an idea to comprehend.
"Consider yourself assigned to guarding the village road duty for the next week," Steven said, "If you can't get on good terms with Rhianwen in that time, I suggest you give up and find a more viable target. Because this has got to stop, Rupert. It's not good for you, and it's not good for her, and quite honestly I'm extremely tired of hearing about it."
Even as he was talking, Steven realized that this must be how Amie felt talking to people all the time. He worried that she might be rubbing off on him, and wished he could take back what he'd just said, as a slightly pained, then rather angry look came into Rupert's eyes.
"Well, if you feel that way about it, why didn't you just say so?" Rupert demanded.
Steven sighed quietly, and answered, "Because... usually I'm a better friend than that."
Rupert looked angry for a moment longer, then it seemed to finally reach his brain that Steven had been seriously injured yesterday, in addition to losing the fight, and potentially ruining Freedonia's attempt to annex Advorton. It was a lot to take, more than Steven was used to. And perhaps Rupert remembered all those times he'd vented his frustration at failing to secure Rhianwen's affection on Steven, as well as letting off steam about the difficulties of becoming a guard.
"Alright, Steven," Rupert said kindly, "We'll try it your way. But I don't see how it'll work."
The rest of the training session was uneventful, to Steven's immense relief.
The uphill return to the castle was more difficult than the downhill slope to the training yard, but it was not quite as painful as it had been yesterday. That is, until Steven remembered that his current duty was to tolerate Royal Adviser Greta for probably an hour. Officially he only had to strategize with her for thirty minutes, but with Greta, it was really until she was finished.
"Ah, Captain Steven," Greta greeted him when he arrived at the study next to the throne room, "Get in here and close the door."
Steven hesitated, looking at the broad archway leading from one room to the other.
There wasn't any door to close. In fact, there wasn't even a curtain to be drawn. It was just as well. The study was already quite cramped with the walnut strategy table, matching scribe table, several full-size Freedonian flags decorating the walls, and a perilously hanging chandelier, without also having extra curtains or a swinging door to worry about.
When Steven stepped into the room, Greta continued, "Since it's Tuesday, you play the enemy pieces and I play with the Freedonian pieces."
"It isn't Tuesday," Steven pointed out.
"Oh. Well then. You play the enemy pieces and I play the Freedonian pieces."