Have Sword, Will Travel by Garth Nix

Author:Garth Nix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

The morning of the single combat dawned blue and bright, with a thin mist that hugged the ground in diaphanous wisps. The village was quiet apart from the occasional groan as people stirred. When a fanfare went up to announce the combat, it was answered by a chorus of complaints.

Sir Saskia was having none of that. Her entourage spread out through all of Hryding, banging on doors and reminding the villagers that the festivities weren’t over yet. They were brigand-free and host to not one knight but two, who would fight spectacularly on the green the moment a respectable audience assembled. How often did they expect to see such a wonder? What would they tell their grandchildren if they missed it?

The other knight had been up for an hour and was practicing in a muddy field, watched by a pair of imperturbable pigs. Biter did his best to cram several years’ worth of lessons into one morning, the sword also instructing Odo on the protocols and manners expected in any knightly encounter. There would be no punching, pinching, or biting, not even wrestling moves like the waterwheel that he had successfully employed against the urthkin.

“Be courteous,” said Biter, for the fifth time. “And you will receive courtesy. Ill manners might result in your death.”

“But Sir Saskia said this would only be until one of us was wounded,” panted Odo.

“Accidents can happen. Even in a contest of skill and honor between knights.”

“But not on purpose,” said Eleanor. “Not Sir Saskia.”

“Hmmph,” said Biter. “In any case, we must fight well, Sir Odo. Forward!”

When Mannix came for them, Odo had worked up a sweat and felt as ready as he was ever going to be, if he ignored the nervous churning of his guts, which had sent him to the privy twice that morning, although that could equally have been the well water that Eleanor was always warning him about. Sheathing Biter, he followed the two squires to the green, where Sir Saskia’s giant tent had already been dismantled in order to make space. As Eleanor had predicted, it was transported on a wagon, though it was drawn by only two oxen, not four.

It seemed that everyone for leagues around had been woken and “encouraged” to come to witness the combat. There were at least a hundred people gathered on three sides of the green. Even children and babies were there, the prospect of blood notwithstanding.

A cheer rose up as Sir Odo walked onto the green.

He waved back, wondering if he should say something. But anything he might have said was drowned out by Sir Saskia’s appearance, which prompted a roar like nothing he had heard since Lenburh had beaten the rival village Gelton in the greased-pig-chasing contest.

If the combat was to be judged by popularity, he had already lost.

Eleanor noted, though, that Sir Saskia’s people were vigorously encouraging the cheering. She frowned as she saw one of the soldiers slap a young man hard on the back. He hadn’t been cheering. Now he was.

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