A pleasant afternoon, thanks to the breeze that takes the worst out of the sun’s heat, and so the yard’s filled with the usual mill of people in the castle: grooms and squires, liveried servants, washer women, knights and watchmen, ladies with their companions. Knights are practicing fiercely at the quintain, taking turns charging at it on their destriers, shivering lances to cheers and comments. Many of the knights wear some badge of distinction, members of the new tourney companies that have become such a craze: it’s the Brothers of the Battle who chiefly pummel the poor old quintain, presently outfitted with a tin helmet wrapped about with a red cloth in Dornish fashion, and whirling like a mad thing after Jaremy Dustin takes his turn at it.
And all this, under the watchful eye of a Dornishman, a hostage: Ser Aidan Dayne. He eats a blood orange with a certain delicacy, a kerchief to hand to save any stains from ruining his striped robes. A youth, his squire, stands with him. The two seem to converse on the tilting at the quintain.
tThe premise of tournaments is rather simple: knights show their valour and skill through displays of ability. However, the thing does not end there: there are multiple layers of subtlety overlayed to the simple premise, and practice seems not to be exempt from this feature. Let’s takes something which could be deemed as unconsequential as the audience: one would think it’s just a bunch of people watching, right? Wrong. True, a lot of people do stop to watch the knights: kids with their mouth agape, young men dreaming to grow up into similar fine examples of valour, young women swooning over the contestants… but that’s just the innermost level of a more intricated structure. For instance there are young men, married to said young women, watching the young women and getting rather annoyed at the attention given to them. There are merchants who are estimating the amount of merchandise to sell.
And, finally, there are people like Lysalla who walk dangerously close to where knights practice, to attract their attention. When they do turn to look at her, she just curls her nose up and dismisses them with a short sentence. “Since when do they let midgets ride?” “Isn’t there a weight limit? I think this is inhumane towards horses!” “You’ll never hit the quintain if you keep ogling the ladies instead of looking at where you’re going…”
And so, sentence after sentence, she comes close to where Aidan is…
Ladies with their companions—or even their children. Reyna Saltcliffe is surrounded today. She marshals a trio of boys before her, the eldest at 6 or so trotting sturdily ahead into the viewing stands, there to hang over the railing as if he might leap into the fray at once. His brother, though more sedate, is right behind him; together, the sons of Colyn Rowan watch the jousting.
These two fair-haired boys are the sun to their younger brother’s night; Thoryn Saltcliffe, all of a year old and tightly held by his nurse, is black of hair and eye, like his dour father. Likewise is the babe held in her mother’s arms, black curls peeping out from under a beaded cap, black eyes glittering at a world she can barely focus on yet. But Reyna does not look the least bit frazzled to have such a gang under her care. Her court gown is crisp and clean, and her cheeks unreddened. She settles behind her sons and then looks to where Aidan stands. “Hallo, Ser Aidan. Your lads are looking in fine form today.” Then Lysalla’s words cut through her sons’ chatter and she starts, brows raised. “Lady Lysalla, good day.”
The Dornishman and his squire listen as Lysalla makes her way nearer, her remarks all the clearer with each step, and Ser Aidan smiles. He starts to say something to the youth beside him. “See, Danyll; no matter how bold the knight, it can be hard to plea—” And then Reyna calls out, and catches his attention. “Oh, Lady Reyna. Good day to you, and to your children,” he remarks, the soft drawl of Dorne in his voice. And then, after a pause, he tilts his head to Lysalla. “My lady. You’ve a keen eye for the jousting, I saw.”
Then, noticing Danyll just standing about, he nudges him. “Make a leg, Danyll!” The youth, startled—stuck on watching the knights and lances take their turn at the quintain—offers a rather clumsy bow to both ladies. Only after that does Aidan add, “Those are the Brothers of the Battle, Lady Reyna, not the Sons of the Spear. I thought to watch them, and perhaps have Danyll learn something useful.”
“A good day to you too, Lady Reyna!”, replies Lysalla, with a smile and a much more relaxed tone of voice, compared to the one she used for the knights. “My, these children keep looking better every time I saw them. They’re growing stronger and healthier with each passing day.” And then, she turns to Aidan. She gives him a once over, and raising his chin a little, she drops a very formal “Thank you, my lord. I happen to have many interests. Are you here for the tournament, too?”, somewhat colder than the ones she used for the knights before.
Reyna looks again and makes a face. “I take it back,” she says coolly, making a subtle gesture to the older boys, who turn and bow neatly to Aidan and Lysalla. Thoryn simply looks at him unblinking, no matter how often his brothers prod him. “There, you see that knight?” she goes on, pointing to the man thundering past, “he leans to the right. He will be quite easy to unhorse, as he is unbalanced.”
She shifts the baby so that the wee girl is tucked into the crook of her elbow but can still watch the world, bending to murmur something sweet into her ear before casting a critical eye into the lists. “And him. If he continues to couch his lance as if it were a tankard of ale instead of a weapon, he’ll end with splinters in his hide. Thank you, Lady Lysalla. Thoryn, don’t be a cur. Bow.” She nudges the small boy with her toe and finally he bends—a little.
“The young master seems in fine spirits,” Aidan remarks, looking at the lad. A pause, and then he remembers the orange in his hand. Plucking out a slice—the dark orange-red juices on his finger—he asks, “Might he have one? Or is he too young for such food? Or perhaps you ladies would prefer a slice… ? I’ve a few left, as you can see; and if I’ve any more, I fear I’ll be as easy to unhorse as ... Well.” His eyes, blue shading towards violet, glance to the Brothers of the Battle as they tilt at the quintain.
“Is there to be a tournament?” he asks, suddenly focusing on what Lysalla said. He looks at her with some care. “You are ... one of Daena’s ladies, aren’t you? I have seen you about her, my lady, but of course we’ve never been introduced. Have you heard aught of a tourney from her?”
“He is rather too like his father to take easily to courtly manners,” Reyna says ruefully of Thoryn, though she nods to him that he might take the piece of orange. “I would love one,” she says of the rest of the oranges. “Lady Lysalla Serrett, please meet Ser Aidan Dayne.”
Then she, too, listens rather keenly to Lysalla. Her son solemnly accepts the orange piece, then plops down on the boards to consume it, paying no mind to juice. When he has managed it all, he starts contentedly licking his fingers and ends leaning against his mother’s leg with fingers still in his mouth. He looks about to doze off when a Reaver in black leather climbs up to where Reyna sits and gestures at length. She watches, then sighs. “All right,” she says, beckoning the nurse and rising. “Forgive me, Ser Aidan, Lady Lysalla, but it seems I am needed at home.” Then she herds her little flock off again and is gone.
Lysalla curtsies in Thoryn’s direction. But just a little, pretty much as little as he did bow. She then smiles at the girl. “And this little jewel, if she keeps getting cuter at this pace, I will seriously have to worry about competition!” She just gives a little shrug at Aidan and looks away at a knight hitting the quintain in such a way to get his lance stuck and falling off his horse. “Well, I had heard there was going to be a tournament, and seen an unusual increase in practice activity in the last days, so….”
“A good day to you, my lady. And my compliments to Ser Dagur,” says the Dornishman, words as fair as they can be as he hands over a bit of orange to Reyna. He watches the little troop take off, though mostly he considers the man-at-arms leading the way away. A pause, and then he offers, “Lady Reyna has always been quite kind to me, for no reason other than her goodness. She’s a loving mother, too, from all I can see.” That seems to be said in approving tones. And yet it’s no great surprise, in a young and famous knight, the Knight of the Twilight as the singers call him, to turn his mind back to tourneys. “Is there indeed? Well, it’s not the Sons of the Spear that will host it,” he says, with a voice of mixed regrets and pleasure. “But any tourney shall do. We’ve all be practicing away, living in hope that the king will grant a license, you know.”
Lysalla offers another shrug again. “Again, it could be just court gossip. You know how these things go. Someone hears a knight is looking for a license to host a tournament, refers the news to someone else, and before you know it, the story has turned into the king himself being about to issue a royal decree forcing all men, women and children of the kingdom to take part in a tournament he himself has started.” She flicks her hand at Aidan. “It sounds plausible, but you shouldn’t pay too much attention to such voices.” She turns to glance in Aidan’s direction for a moment, then briefly cranes her neck: something or someone behind Aidan apparently catching her attention, but it lasts just a second, and she returns to look at the practicing knights. “What a bunch of buffoons.”
The frankness of Lysalla’s remarks leaves Aidan momentarily speechless, as he watches the men tilting at the quintain. Then he offers, a bit weakly, “They are brave men, one cannot deny them that.” Then he takes a bit from a slice of blood orange, careful not to have any juice dribble past his lips. A lance snaps, smashing against the quintain in that interval, sending it spinning as the Brothers of the Battle chuckle and call out encouragements. “And some of them are fine jousters, to be sure,” he adds, half to himself.
Then, glancing at the sky, the knight says, “It’s growing later than I thought. Time for a repast with your siblings, Danyll,” he tells the squire, “and then on to the sept for the evening worship.” Turning back to Lysalla, he offers a bow, though without a flourish for fear of staining the wide sleeves of his robe. “Thank you for the hint that there may be a tourney soon, my lady,” the knight says, sincerely. “Even if it turns out false, still, a little hope never hurts. A good day to you.” His squire offers a bow, less clumsy now, and then the two are gone.