“You’re sure about this?” Esme asked. Anxiety lined her face as the girl bound the vambrace’s strap around Cordelia’s arm. “You heard him,” the blonde lowered her voice, “no trick. Not even that one yesterday.”

“I know,” Cordelia said simply.

“Look,” Esme persisted, “It’s fine if you fail, you hear? He won’t deal with you too rough, duel or not. Then I can find another way to be knighted, of a surety. There’s no reason to risk yourself here.”

“You nag like mom,” she clicked her tongue.

“I wouldn’t know,” the blonde smiled wryly. “And didn’t you say I was your mistress?”

“Don’t spoil it now,” Cordelia hissed, exasperated. “Send me off with an air kiss or something. Or just let me go! Can’t you see I’m already anxious as hell?”

“Be glad I haven’t smacked you for being so recklessly stupid,” Esme said quietly.

“Stupid, yeah,” she adjusted the vambrace, hiking it higher to expose the white bracelet. “Reckless? Not quite.”

She returned to the middle of the square and found the knight awaited. The familiar at her wrist stirred. A round of murmurs passed through the crowd.

Then came the seneschal, bearing a great tome, upon which she was made to place a hand on and swear to uphold honor.

As the book was carried to Sir Kamaric for his turn of the ritual, the familiar at her hand said, to her irritation: “And if your plan D should fail?”

“Silence.”

She angled the sword, feeling the burden of its weight and the tremendous effort she must exert only to quiet her trembling hands. She could only imagine how all this was clear as day to her opponent.

On the opposite side of the field, the knight regarded her solemnly.

“On guard!”

And he came. Even Cordelia’s alerted senses processed little of the charge: a mass of steel with unexpected mobility, leaping like a serpent’s deadly fangs, and before she could read its trajectory, the blade had struck home. The crowd was instantly roused. Her hand vibrated violently at the immense impact upon her feeble parry. Disoriented and forced to stagger backward, her confused footing could scarce keep her from a stumble. The steel in her hands was ringing still a few seconds after the fact.

When she opened her eyes again after a moment's panic, the knight was standing still some distance away, closer than he was before the charge, but still beyond her counter range.

Unbearably slowly did she organize the facts of what had just happened. She would have been all but dead if this had been real combat. It was not. And in the last moment, the knight had realized even his little expectation of her was an overestimation, and had held back, else her own sword would have been forced by the impact through her unguarded skull.

For all this, and though unmoving all this time, she was winded after the first exchange.

Angrily she tried to settle her shaking hands.

The knight waited patiently, watching.

“Do you yield?” he said.

“What do you think, sir?” she said hoarsely, trying to muster a convincing morsel of defiance. It took her all the concentration of both hands to keep the sword from falling out of her grip.

Her blood ran cold. Her mouth slacked. She thrust out her forked tongue in a manner barely perceptible to the eye to read the situation, and knew at once that there was little hope, with trick or not.

image [https://i.ibb.co/m8g5QKh/CS-6.png]

KAMARIC OF ARGENTON

ORDER: Sir Gawain the Loyal

RACE: Human

Alignment: Lawful Good

Attributes:

Might - S

Masteries - B

Endurance - S

Spirit - S

Perception - C

Charisma - B

Leadership - S

CLASS: Knight Marquess

But confounded it all, it was then or never: she released the sedative miasma. The poison of no smell, no taste - invisible as thoughts.

But what if he should drop his guard? Unconfidence stirred in her chest. Would she be able to take advantage of it as she had with Esme, who had not the experience of a veteran knight?

“You cannot,” hissed Mastema.

“Better than to be nothing and think too much,” she barked, “Am I a coward?”

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Mayhap. But one with a plan.

She waited. For a long while, she waited, reading the knight. Tasting the air. Then as the wind shifted, she lunged at the standing knight. He sidestepped. Such was enough to send her almost straight out of the square. Waiting for the inevitable strike, she whipped her head around. But yet again, the knight maintained a distance.

Did it work?

He watched her.

She raised her weapon again. A pain hiked in her chest, for fear or overexertion. Again she charged, this time mindful of her footing. One step after another. Measured steps. Blade pointed straight.

The long sword languidly swept her assault aside.

She lost both her balance and weapon, stumbling to the ground.

“ ‘Tis enough, is it not?” the knight said, shaking his head.

“Enough?” she spat out the hair stuck in her mouth. “Well, not. But now!”

Even as the crowd jeered, she thrust out her hand, as though casting at the knight’s face a hateful curse. Like a javelin the tiny serpent sprang from her wrist, slipping neatly between the gap at his armpit. Even as the knight cried out in astonishment, she picked the sword off the ground and swung at his feet. A metallic sound signaled the duel’s conclusion.

And the square was quiet. Perfectly quiet.

The only sound there was only she could hear. Mastema’s voice: “Well, you have done it now. Now it begins!”

It was the seneschal’s bellow that smashed the long silence to pieces: “Hue and cry! What stand you there for? Apprehend the witch!” As though the air was unplugged, barked orders and protests rose from every quarter. Then chaos.

The men-at-arms stormed out from observing rows. Without a grain of mercy for a girl, they charged at Cordelia, seized her by both arms with brute force, and pushed her down on her knees. Then chaos rose to its crescendo anew, sparking cries and violent shouts from the other side of the square. Even as Cordelia looked up from the ground, Esme was slipping under a guard’s arm, entering the ground with her blade naked. Ere the nearest man-at-arms could draw his weapon from the sheath, she smashed it clean from his hands, sheath and all. Now she ducked and plunged through the closing in ranks of guards, and in no time had gained the spot where Cordelia was kneeling. She lifted her blade, feigned a strike, prompting the men to drop their prisoner and throw themselves backward to draw their weapons.

Even as the released girl half sat on the ground, recovering from the painful grip of those men, Esme stood over her. Her blade described a wide arc, pushing back aught dared approached. “By the Lord, I swear!” she cried, “Come and I will slay you out of hand!”

And she could make good on her threat, Cordelia knew. Naught in this square was Esme’s match in raw prowess. Naught, but one.

As briskly as his men drew back, the lord advanced. After the initial astonishment, he appeared completely unharmed. Nor had Cordelia expected otherwise for how many times the Snakeling Poison had disappointed. But the change in him was an altered expression--that of indignation. His blade pointed now at her with more malice than it ever had during the duel. “I offered my wealth, then my honor in combat. You forsook both. Have you aught now to say?”

“Stay back!” Esme was adamant, her stance unwavering even before a knight.

“You defend an oathbreaker, lass,” he said.

The seneschal came up behind his master. Looking vindicated, he wagged the tome in his hand. “She swore over the Holy Book, thus sanctified the duel. Not only did she claim to understand the rules, but my lord had reminded her of which. There is no feigning ignorance.”

“ ‘Tis as Gideon says,” said the knight.

“ ‘Twas magic!” someone said from the observing crowd. Another, “She conjured a pixie to bite our lord knight, she did!” And many such rose in a chorus of condemnation.

“There’s no possible denial,” the seneschal went on. “Claim you it was a fair trick, whatever it is?”

“Well...” Esme hesitated. “You do not know.”

“You believe not what you say.” The knight raised his right arm, and with two fingers stretched the underarm of his gambeson, where two holes in the thick fabric were visible to the eye. “These were made by fangs - twin fangs as that of a serpent. And during the battle, I sensed a disturbance in my psyche. ‘Twas a spell for certainty as this sword of mine. If insist you otherwise, I shall send for my physician. Well?”

The blonde raised her head in defiance. “And I say it was no trick. If you are knight, harass not girls and children, but let us be on our way and we shall never molest your peace or this town’s again.”

“Say you ‘twas no magic even now!” the knight cried.

“It was not!”

Cordelia stared at her guardian in disbelief.

Cordelia saw now how she had erred in reading this girl’s nature. In her conceit, she had not been able to conceive something which should have been obvious. But the pieces fell into places easily, upon thinking it through.

What, after all, is the meaning of such a vague title as Maiden of God?

What nature do these words entail, she hadn’t the slightest idea till then. An impeccable saintess? A philosophical savior of mankind? The deliverer? The redeemer?

She knew not, only that in some and many ways Esme had recalled that girl in her past, who had shone even as radiantly in moments like these. That had been enough for the Tempress to take the solemn oath before the girl’s brother.

For surely as Cordelia herself knew it, Esme ought to know it to be magic, a scoundrel’s trick. And how could she not after the spar yesterday? Cordelia had even told her plainly that it was. And as for the rules of the duel, for all that she ever raved on about the honor of knights and pride of righteous combat, could aught ever doubt the girl’s obsessive knowledge of the matter. But out of hand, she had betrayed it all, no hesitation whatsoever - values, principles, honors - all that should have been paramount in the role models she aspired to be. Or mayhap it was all there, only in a different form, and Cordelia had only chanced her first glimpse at the true nature of which.

And she wondered at her decision to serve this incomprehensible girl. What kind of life would she lead to go against the gods good and evil for this girl?

But that ship had long ago sailed. ‘Twas time to sit back and bask in whatever this journey shall bring.

So Cordelia tugged at the girl’s shirt and hoisted herself up. “I thank you, Esme. But you must cease this folly,” she said.

The girl looked at her with wild, frightened eyes, even as one who had begun to see where this was going.

“My lord knight Kamaric,” Cordelia declared, “I poisoned you with a miasma and the fangs of a viper. That they are spells, I do not deny. Nor do I claim ignorance of what the oath entails, nor blame the spur of passion, nor beg for clemency aught. Nay, for ‘twas my intention all along to cheat at this duel, but never to conceal my methods, even before coming here. Even so, I emerged the victor all the same, that you cannot contradict. And so you must uphold your promise! So must I for an oath broken - my life in exchange for sanctified combat profaned! Slay me for my sins, and mine alone, but fulfill your promise to make my mistress squire!”