For Honor
In the heat of the tourney, my knight raises his shield against another blow, and I grip my seat hard enough to squeeze the blood from my fingers. Though the sun looks down on us like the eye of a wrathful god, turning the crown molten on my head, a cool autumn breeze chills the back of my neck. This is to be a celebration, I am told, despite its barbarity.
It is as thrilling as it is frightening to remember that he is capable of violence, my knight. That those hands which hold my own so gently can guide a sword to its mark, his low, somber voice now pitched in a wild scream as he batters his opponent. It is an image I cannot reconcile with that of the morning’s—the one of him in my bed, his arms holding me. I had not thought of the strength in them until now. He fights like an animal made up of clattering mail, thrusting his sword into any gap his opponent leaves him, but the other knight is just as fierce and meets his attacks head-on. The crowd around me shouts and jeers.
From my vantage point I can see the kerchief I had tied around his neck before the melee, a token of my favor. Even as I did so, I had pleaded with him to reconsider. I could not tell him all of the things I imagined might happen in a duel, each truly worse than the last—all I could tell him, hopelessly, was that I loved him. I love you more, he’d replied. I had wanted to swoon into his arms then, petulant and childish. He was always so good at giving me everything I wanted, why not this?
Only a few months before, we had sat under a tree together. I read him poetry, and as he listened, he braided flowers together, distracting me with those deft, careful fingers. When he noticed I’d paused in the midst of a sonnet, he had bashfully held out the fruit of his labor. It’s not much, he had said, but I preferred a crown of daisies over gold. He had looked at me with those too-blue eyes then, and sealed my fate.
But he was a knight. This was something I could not change. Part of me still does not want to, even as the daisies painted on his shield are destroyed, strike by strike.
Sitting there in the stands, I can still feel the ghost of his lips pressed to my knuckles. I trap my hands in my lap. I do not close my eyes or look away, though I gasp when the mace comes down and collides with his helm.
My knight falls, and I leap from my seat to lean over the rail. I want to run out onto the field, put a stop to this madness, but his words are still fresh in my mind: What’s the worst that could happen? I see my green kerchief, still in its place.
The mace swings down again. My knight raises his shield to block it. His armor shines blindingly in the sun. I squint against the glare, hoping to read the combat like a poem, understand each verse as it comes: a pauldron dented, helmet rung, a shield struck, a hilt found by a gauntlet.
My knight rolls away from the next blow, rises to his feet. He is like a dancer, I think, so full of grace as he baits his partner into a swing, catches them off-guard with a pommel strike and sends them sprawling to the dirt.
He has his opponent on the ground, and finally, blessedly, disarms them. He levels his sword at the dark slit of their visor. They yield.
The crowd erupts into a noise fit to bring down the heavens as he helps his opponent to their feet. He claps a hand on their shoulder. He even retrieves the mace. My knight is chivalrous to a fault.
He removes his helm as he is announced the victor. His white gold hair sticks to his face as he crosses the muddy furrows of the field, plants his sword into the ground, and takes a knee. “My prince,” he calls to me, “I have defended your honor.”
Flowers rain down. The people roar.
My knight is led from the field by a group of squires, spirited away to a linen tent pitched beside the battle field.
I flee the stands. The people look up at me, all smiling so wide, thinking how lucky I am to have found such loyalty. Such bravery. I might add foolhardiness to the list of my knight’s virtues.
As I approach the tent, a young squire spots me. He bows low. “Your majesty,” he says, to my great embarrassment, “your man is just inside here.” He lifts a flap of the tent for me.
It is here I find my knight. He is seated on one of the benches, gulping down a blue Gatorade. He lowers the bottle when he sees me, wipes his chin.
“Look,” he calls, leaning an arm atop a box placed on the bench beside him. “I won us a PS5!”
That is all well and good, I tell him, but I am afraid he has a concussion. He laughs off the thought, even as I take his face in my hands to examine his pupils and rub at a red mark on his forehead.
“She didn’t hit me that hard.” He takes the opportunity to lean his sticky cheek into the palm of my hand, smiling a big, dopey smile. “And all that foam padding you glued into the helmet kept me safe.”
He always knows just what to say to mollify me. I return the favor and tell him it was a magnificent performance. Extremely compelling.
He glows at my praise. I find his glasses in one of my pockets and clean them before giving them over, then I take hold of a gauntlet and hoist him onto his feet. He is unsteady from the fight, and we laugh when his bulk nearly crushes me.
“I knew this would be a fun date,” he says. His voice is warm.
Childish as I am, I can admit when I am wrong. With his arm draped over my shoulders, the Renaissance Faire is admittedly tolerable. I cling to the shelter of his side, hugging the trunk of his waist and hoping no one else bows to me or calls me “your majesty.” I am ready to be only myself again.
My knight leans in to plant a kiss on my cheek and I do not complain that he is sweaty. “Shall I drive us home, my prince?”
I would love nothing more. We stagger from the tent, both with prizes in our arms.
