Chapter 30 — "Tourney and Joust"
The camp was already moving when Alaric stepped outside.
The Crossroads Inn behind him. The morning grey and damp in the Riverlands . Men eating. Horses being seen to. The two-fifty doing what the two-fifty did in the morning which was function without being told to.
He stood with a cup of ale watched the road.
Harys appeared at his shoulder.
"There is news in the realm, There's a tourney, " Harys said.
Alaric looked at him.
"Lord Whent's cousin. Hosting at his keep three days south." Harys had a folded piece of paper which he handed over. "Heard about it from a merchant leaving the inn this morning. Prize money is decent. Melee and joust both."
Alaric looked at the paper.
Alaric looked at the road south.
He thought about the Reach.
The first time he had seen the Reach properly — not from a road passing through it but from inside it, camped in it, surrounded by the specific green extravagance of country that had decided to commit fully to being alive — he had understood why southerners talked about it the way northerners talked about Winterfell.
The tournament had been at a lord's keep two days east of Bitterbridge. A Fossoway cousin hosting — minor house, good land, the specific ambition of a man who understood that hosting a good tournament was one of the faster ways to remind larger houses that you existed.
Alaric had arrived with the company and made camp outside the tournament grounds and gone in the next morning to enter his name.
The melee first. That was the plan. The melee was his ground — open fighting, multiple opponents, the axe working the way the axe worked. The joust was something else.
Alacric laughed remembering what has happened after that.
Harys" Commander you can't joust. It has a certain fineness into it. A brute like you can't understand it " he laughed at Alacric while saying it. " Like you said you are Northerner warrior not a southern knight."
Alaric" I can ride well. More than anyone in this realm. My Lord Uncle even compared me to my father with his riding skills. He was famous for it. They called him the Wild Wolf."
Harys " those are not the same thing.You need to be skilled and accurate."
Alacric " Fuck off i will prove it to you . You cunt."
He had entered the joust anyway.
Then the realm seen the most brute and crude joust in the history. It was crude and brutal with no technique and just brute strength.
His first opponent was a young Fossoway knight — local, comfortable, the specific ease of a man jousting on his own lord's ground in front of his own lord's people. He sat his horse the way tournament knights sat horses — completely, without apparent effort, horse and rider one thing rather than two things in proximity.
Alaric sat his horse the way a man sat a horse who had been riding since he was six.
The difference was visible from the stands.
He heard it in the crowd's noise when they entered the lists. The audience are clearly in favour of a Fossaway knight.
Alacric charge.
He had watched enough jousting in Vale to understand Understanding the mechanics and executing them from horseback at speed against a man who had been executing them since childhood were different things.
His lance caught the Fossoway knight's shield at the wrong angle.
Glanced off.
The Fossoway knight's lance caught him square in the chest. But it lacked the strength of dropping a mountain of man Alacric was.
He rode the second pass differently.
His lance connected.
Not perfectly — nothing about it was perfect — but connected. The Fossoway knight rocked in his saddle and his arse was on ground. It was crude with the help of brute strength.
The Fossoway knight left the saddle.
The crowd made a different noise.
He won four more jousts that day.
Not elegantly. Not in the manner that the Reach's tournament culture celebrated — the flowing horsemanship, the perfect lance work, the performance of southern chivalry.
Something else.
The crowd going from uncertain to interested to something louder as the afternoon went on.
After the fifth joust a man from the Hightower retinue had found him.
Polite. Careful. The assessment dressed as pleasantries.
Alaric had let himself be assessed.
They had parted on cordial uncommitted terms that probably meant more to the Hightower man than they meant to Alaric and probably always would.
The melee the following day had been what the melee always was — Alaric's ground, Alaric's terms, over before the crowd had fully decided how to watch it.
The prize money from both combined had been the most he had won in a single tournament.
Harys"This was murder of the joust. You destroyed joust . It was the most disturbing and disgusting thing I ever seen in my life."
Alacric laughed remembering those days and times.
The Crossroads Inn behind him. The Riverlands morning. The paper in his hand with the details of the tourney three days south.
He folded it.
Looked at the road.
"Tell the company," he said. " We are traveling south."
Harys nodded.
"And Harys."
"Yes."
"Next time you interrupt me in a room—" He handed the cup back. "Knock louder so I can tell you to go away."
Harys took the cup.
"Jon Arryn dying seemed urgent," he said.
"Everything seems urgent to you at the wrong moment."
Harys almost smiled.
He walked back toward the camp.
Alaric looked at the road south.
Three days.
He had things to remember on the way.
Can a man get a Patreon member .
---
Drop some Power Stones . Comment your thoughts.
If you want to read ahead
Join the patreon to support .
www.patreon.com/NateStark.
Please join my Patreon to support and read extra chapters ahead