Champion of the Ages: Book 2
Copyright© 2026 by SummitMan
Chapter 2
On the last morning of the journey, with the river grown wide and slow and the fields giving way to orchards and walled villages, Frances called her small team together beneath the canvas awning.
Sir Godwin settled himself against a wooden crate, rubbed his chin, and began.
“We shall establish ourselves in the finest inn in the city,” he said. “The Crown and Anchor, near the river gate. I had thought for a time that we might lodge at the Ironwatch residence, with Hallam, our Voice. But I believe it would serve you poorly, my lady. You are the Commander of the Armies, not the Baron’s guest, and the court must see you as a power in your own right. To lodge beneath the Baron’s roof would bind you too closely to Ironwatch in their eyes.” He spread his hands. “The Baron has furnished us with funds enough to keep the whole party in the city for some weeks, should there be need.”
“And once we’re settled?” Frances asked.
“Then we send a messenger to the palace, to announce that the Summoned Champion has arrived.” He held up a finger. “Now, my lady, you might suppose that since the King himself summoned you, he will wish to see you at once. That would be a mistake. King Aldric will still be gathering what he knows of you. Prince Corin’s letter, the Baron’s, Magnus’s account. And he will certainly expect word from Silverford, from the Baroness and very likely from Sir Berengar as well.” A faint smile. “He will spend the first day after our arrival reading, and taking counsel with his Court Barons. On the second day, he will weigh what he has learned, and he will let us wander the city, and he will have us watched, to see what we do with our time. I expect that he will summon us to court on the afternoon of the third day.”
“It sounds,” Frances said slowly, “as though he doesn’t make a move without thinking it through.”
“He does not, my lady.” Sir Godwin said it with something like respect. “Had King Aldric not been born the eldest, I believe he would have been a scholar. He seldom acts without long and careful thought. The barons gave up, many years ago, trying to sway him with flattery, or gifts, or pressure. None of it serves.”
Frances nodded, and filed that away. A careful king was not the worst thing she could have hoped for.
“What about the court itself? When I go in, what should I expect?”
“You will be received in open court, my lady, not in a private audience, at least at first. It is a great hall, and a crowded one. The Officers of State will be present: the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Marshal, and the Chamberlain, together with the King’s own guard. The Voices of the baronies will be there, and quite possibly a baron or two in person. There will be some few courtiers and favorites, though not many. The King has little patience for men who serve no useful purpose. And there will be other petitioners, waiting their turn as you wait yours.” He considered. “You will dress formally. Any weapons you carry must be surrendered at the door. An usher will lead you in, show you to the bar where petitioners stand, and announce you to the King.”
“And then?” Frances hesitated. “What do I have to do? Kneel? Prostrate myself?”
Sir Godwin looked, for a moment, genuinely shocked.
“Of course not, my lady.” He shook his head. “By the Fourth Prohibition, every person stands equal to the King before the law. Aldric the Unifier decreed that no more than a short bow should be given to any king or baron, for he held that his power came from the people, and not from any higher power. That custom has held ever since.” A dry note crept into his voice. “The barons, I confess, are forever trying to insist upon more for themselves. But by custom, they may ask no more than the King himself is given. You will, however, address him as Your Majesty.”
He went on. “Once you have been brought forward and have made your bow, the King will speak. He will ask whatever he wishes, and give whatever public commands he desires. When he releases you, you return to your place and remain until the court is done. Many petitioners bring gifts, but those are given in private. To present a gift openly in court is thought a grave error of manners.”
Frances nodded, and found herself more than a little impressed. She had read a great deal about the courts of medieval Europe: the bowing and scraping, the kneeling and kissing of hands, the elaborate theater of power. This sounded almost businesslike by comparison.
“May other people speak? Ask questions?”
“Indeed, my lady. The Officers of State may question you, and so may any of the Voices of the baronies. The King will often let the questioning run for some while before he ends it.” Sir Godwin tapped the side of his nose. “But mark this. The King always comes prepared. You may safely assume that some of the questions put to you will be his own, even though another man asks them. He uses that means often, to draw out those who would oppose him.”
“Good to know,” Frances murmured.
“While you stand as petitioner,” Sir Godwin continued, “you should ask the King for a private audience, with his Officers of State, to lay before him the Foretelling and the matter of your summoning. He will almost certainly grant it. He may even call for it at once, the moment open court is done. So bring your Lady-in-Waiting and your guard with you, and have Brother Edmund carry every document he has.” He inclined his head. “Before we land, I shall write out for you the names of all the Officers of State and the Court Barons, and something of each man’s character, so that you may know who sits across the table from you.”
Frances looked at him for a long moment, and then gave him a nod of real respect.
“Sir Godwin, your briefings are extraordinary,” she said. “The detail and the insight both. The Baron couldn’t have given me better preparation than sending you with me.”
Sir Godwin smiled, and inclined his head, and did not quite manage to hide how pleased he was.
Frances thought for a moment. “All right. Next question. We’re going to be wandering around Aldricspire, by your account. Are we likely to be challenged? By knights, or nobles? And if we are, how should I handle it?”
Sir Godwin nodded to Sir Ranulf, who leaned in under the awning.
“Word of the Trial will have reached Aldricspire long since, my lady,” Sir Ranulf said. “And I should not be surprised if one of the Silverford knights has already sent word of your bouts in their yard. It would be a courtesy to send to the Captain of the Guard here, to let him know you have arrived, and to ask if you might visit. He is well respected, and I expect no discourtesy from him or his men.” He paused. “I think it more likely that trouble, if it comes, will come from some noble outside the Guard. A brother or a cousin of one of the barons, perhaps, with more pride than sense. That you must handle without violence, my lady, for such men do not stand under your military command. Though no one would expect you to suffer open disrespect.”
“Okay,” Frances said. “So I visit the Guard, see some of the city, and deal with the nobles as they come. Third item, then. Intelligence.”
She turned to Marguerite, who had been sitting quietly among the chests.
“Marguerite. You said you meant to look for new clothes while we’re here.”
“I did, my lady.”
“While you’re doing it, could you ask some questions for me? Not of the nobles. Of the shopkeepers, the dressmakers, the carpenters, the ordinary people of the city. I’d like to know what they’ve heard about me. And what they know, or think they know, about the invasion.”
Marguerite sat up very straight. She looked, Frances thought, as though she had just been handed a commission from the King himself.
“Yes, my lady,” she said. “Gladly.”
“Good.” Frances looked around at all of them. “That’s it for today, team. Unless something comes up, we’ll meet tomorrow at the fifteenth bell, at the inn.” She glanced at Sir Godwin. “The Crown and Anchor, you said?”
Sir Godwin nodded.
Aldricspire was the largest city Frances had seen in Valdoria, and it took her breath away.
It spread out along both banks of the river where the Silverrun met the sea, a great tumble of pale stone and slate roofs climbing up toward the palace on its hill, and beyond it, a forest of masts in the harbor and the long, low sheds of the shipyards that Queen Rowena had founded. Bells were ringing somewhere. Gulls wheeled overhead.
When they landed at the riverside docks, Sir Ranulf had already arranged for a drek-drawn cart to carry their chests to the inn, and an open carriage for the party. The dreks were slow, ponderous beasts, and Frances could hear one of them wheezing in its throat harness as it leaned into the load. She made a private note that Osbert had a very large market waiting for him. But it was pleasant, after so many days on the river, not to have to walk.
The streets were cobbled, and wide enough for two carts to pass each other with room to spare. As the carriage rolled up from the river, Frances found herself looking around with a teacher’s curiosity, and it was some while before she realized what she was not seeing.
There were no open sewers. There was no smell.
She turned to Sir Godwin. “It never occurred to me before. There are no open sewers here, or at Ironwatch either. How is waste dealt with?”
Sir Godwin looked at her as though she had asked how the sun rose.
“Beneath the streets, my lady,” he said. “Sewers have been required in every city since the early days of Aldric the Unifier, upon the counsel of the healers. They objected, most strongly, to treating sicknesses that need never have happened had the waste been properly handled.”
Frances nodded slowly, and sat back.
It was another of those strange, lopsided things about this world. It was at or ahead of her own in the healing arts, and centuries behind in almost everything else.
By the time their chests had been carried up to their rooms at the Crown and Anchor, the afternoon was wearing toward evening. The inn was every bit as grand as Sir Godwin had promised, all dark polished wood and tall windows and fires in every hearth, and Frances found herself thinking, with some amusement, that the Baron was getting very good value for his money.
She found the others gathered in the inn’s hall.
“Where would you recommend we eat tonight?” she asked Sir Godwin.
“The inn’s own dining room keeps a table entirely fit for nobles, my lady,” he said. “I would suggest we look no further.”
At that, one of the knights cleared his throat. It was Sir Kenelm, the quietest of the four, who had scarcely said a dozen words since Ironwatch. He had gone rather red.
“My lady?”
Frances turned to him in surprise. “Yes, Sir Kenelm?”
“My lady, there is an inn not a hundred feet down the street. The Iron Kettle. I ate there a year ago, and the food is very fine.” His face went redder still, but he pressed on. “And they have a bard who sings! It is ... it is wonderful, my lady.”
Sir Godwin made a small, disapproving sound.
“It is frequented by merchants, my lady,” he said. “And shopkeepers, and the like.” He paused, and then added, with the air of a man confessing to something faintly shameful, “Though I will admit it is reputed to keep a good table. And good ale.”
Frances smiled at Sir Kenelm.
“Well,” she said, “it sounds like the choice is clear. Good food, good ale, and maybe a bard who sings.”
Sir Kenelm’s face broke into a broad, delighted grin.
The Iron Kettle was loud, warm, smoky, and packed nearly to the walls.
They found space at the end of one of the long trestle tables toward the edge of the hall, beside a group of men and women who were cheerfully working their way through a great deal of ale. Sir Godwin made one last attempt to steer Frances toward the small private dining room kept for noble guests, but she would have none of it.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “This is perfect.”
And it was. The whole room reminded her of nothing so much as a Friday-afternoon happy hour back home, the end of a long week and everyone talking at once. And to her surprise, there were as many women in the hall as men, and, if anything, they seemed to be making more of the noise.
She leaned toward Sir Ranulf. “Is that usual? So many women?”
He frowned slightly, glancing around. “It is not, my lady. I should not commonly expect half so many.” He considered the room a moment longer, and a slow smile came over his face. “But it makes a pleasing change.”
A serving maid came by with a great jug of ale, filled their cups, and told them the food would be out directly. Frances asked Sir Ranulf whether there was any choice to be had.
He shook his head. “Not in an inn such as this, my lady. They cook one meal, and serve it to all.”
The meal, when it came, was a thick, savory stew with good dark bread and a sharp, crumbly cheese, and the ale was every bit as good as Sir Godwin had grudgingly allowed. By the time the bowls had been cleared away, Frances found it hard to remember the last time she had enjoyed herself so much. The noise and the warmth and the easy, friendly crowd reminded her of a college pub in Ann Arbor on a Saturday night, a lifetime and a world ago.
Then a cry went up from the far end of the hall.
“The bard! The bard!”
It spread from table to table until the whole room had taken it up. A woman rose from a bench near the hearth and climbed up onto a small table so that everyone could see her. She was perhaps thirty, sharp-featured and bright-eyed, and she carried a small stringed instrument, something like a lyre, with four strings, which she plucked once and then strummed, and the room quieted to listen.
“It is said,” she called out, “that the Lady Champion has come to Aldricspire this very day.”
The hall erupted in cheers. Most of them, Frances noticed, came from the women.
Across the table, Sir Godwin’s eyes had gone very wide.
The bard smiled and raised her hand. “Is there any song you would have me sing?”
A cry rose from the women around the room. It was almost a chant, taken up from table to table.
“The Champion of Ages! The Champion of Ages!”
The bard nodded, and gave another strum, and when she spoke again, it was in a low, serious chant.
“I was there,” she said. “I was there at Ironwatch, for the Trial of the Champion. I saw it with mine own eyes. And every word I sing is true.”
The cheering redoubled, until she struck one more chord and the hall fell silent. Then, softly at first, she began to sing.
From a world far beyond us, past starlight and sea,
By the mages of Ironwatch, she was summoned to fight,
To stand ‘gainst an army no castle could hold:
The Champion of Ages, come forth in her might.But none would believe her, not one in the hall:
Not the Guard, not the Prince, not the servants who heard,
Not the Baron who sat in his chair made of stone.
They saw but a woman, and doubted her word.Then the Prince cried a Trial, and loud did he cry,
Before all of the Guard, with the Baron nearby:
And to Frances’s astonishment, every woman in the room joined in the chorus.
That she was a woman, unfit for the field,
That she was a woman, no blade could she wield,
That she was a woman, her summoning broken,
That she was a woman. And the Prince had spoken.
The bard sang on, and the room hung on every word.
Then out came the Lady, her mail shining bright,
Her sword gleaming silver, as keen as a flame,
And her shield, faced in bronze, like the sun in the sky,
And the Guard on the wall fell to whispering her name.
The ballad went on through Sir Gareth’s attacks, and the silence of the Guard, and the long minutes of the duel. After every stanza, the women cheered so loudly that the bard had to wait for them to settle before she could go on. And when the second refrain came, they sang it with her, louder than before.
That she was a woman, unfit for the field,
That she was a woman, no blade could she wield,
That she was a woman. But the woman had spoken,
And there on the chalk lay Sir Gareth, broken.
Frances thought it must surely end there. But the bard sang on, of the foul mage and his torrent of fire, and the whole room leaned forward together.
But the day was not ended, for Gregory the mage
Cried, “No, it cannot be!” and rose up in his wrath,
And he hurled at the Lady a spell of foul fire,
And a torrent of flame swept the Champion’s path.But the bright bronze shield that had shone like the sun
Stood firm ‘gainst the fire as the flames rolled away,
And out of the burning, her sword in her hand,
Charged the Champion of Ages through smoke and through grey.For an untruth was spoken, and spoken in pride,
And the Champion answered, and would not be denied:
And then every woman in the Iron Kettle rose to her feet, and sang the last refrain together.
That she was a woman, unfit for the field,
That she was a woman, no blade could she wield,
That she was a woman. But the woman had spoken,
And there by the benches, the foul mage lay broken.
The cheering went on and on, the women loudest of all, stamping and clapping and calling out. A good many of the men joined in, too. They seemed to like the song well enough, Frances thought, even if they were not quite as carried away by it as the women were.
Sir Godwin leaned across the table toward her.
“I believe,” he said dryly, “that we may safely assume the merchants and shopkeepers of Aldricspire are aware of your existence.”
Frances looked around at her team.
Edmund’s eyes were bright, and he was already reaching, she suspected, for his tablet. The four knights looked proud, and also a little rueful, since the Guard of Ironwatch had not come off especially well in the song, though Haldor, she thought, would be delighted to hear of his ‘bright bronze shield’ and ‘mail shining bright’. And somewhere at the back of her mind, Frances thought of Prince Corin, and wondered how he would feel the first time he heard himself sung of as the man who cried a Trial against her.
But Marguerite.
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