After Simon left Baron Edmund's camp, he led his troops through the miscellaneous tents and supplies, passed through the civilian audience with rags and smelly clothes, and arrived at the large wooden table belonging to the royal clerk next to the noble wooden stand. .
"It's you, respected Lord Simon!" The old royal clerk raised his tired gray eyes covered with deep bags under his eyes, then rubbed his eyes, looked at Simon's face carefully, and said to Simon.
"Yes, it's me, the respected clerk Dana," Simon also recognized the old man who had previously issued a crenellation certificate to himself in the king's castle. "It seems that you have been very busy recently!"
"Yes, although my apprentice Yaerlin and others helped me collect and summarize the information of the contestants, in the end things such as preliminary group promotion and group promotion still have to be left to me. There are many factors to consider in the process, such as the basis of Grouping according to the principle of fairness and so on, oh, it takes a lot of effort!" The old clerk Dana's eyes were bloodshot, and thick black circles surrounded his eyes. Although he was relatively clean and well-dressed, he was covered in a strong smell of sweat and hadn't taken a shower for who knows how long.
The old clerk Dana rubbed his eyes again, yawned tiredly, and scratched his snow-white hair, but he seemed to suddenly remember something.
"By the way, Sir Simon, I almost forgot to congratulate you for advancing to the preliminary round. Your game was very exciting, but forgive me for being busy with work and not seeing it with my own eyes. In addition, for the sake of fairness and the remaining number of people in the team, I will Arrange for you to duel with Baron Adenauer and his team from Saxony. The match will be tomorrow morning..." The old clerk Dana said with excitement, but Simon could no longer hold it in any longer.
"Thank you very much for your hard work, Mr. Dana, but I'm sorry that I have to interrupt you. I'm not here to understand the upcoming game schedule, but to withdraw from this team melee." Simon looked at Old Dai Nana's gray eyes showed surprise, and she opened her mouth to express her plan.
………………
Abandoning the game is not a glorious thing, but Simon will not take the lives of his partners just to lower his honor or to let people talk less behind their backs, and then beg like a gambler to be able to compete with more elites. Win the duel with your opponent and keep the loot you got previously.
Simon, who was temporarily free from the constraints of the game, felt relaxed. Watching the other teams fighting to the death on the field, he completely lost the nervous and anxious feeling he had when he first watched the duel between Baron Ernest and Baron Reginald.
It is no exaggeration to say that Simon is already an outsider. Even if everyone in the last team that stands out has the terrifying strength of a royal knight, it has nothing to do with him.
He finally experienced the fun of being an audience, it was simple, exciting and happy.
Baron Ernest's team met everyone's expectations and successfully entered the finals. What was surprising was that the other team actually came from the territory of the Slavs who had recently surrendered to the kingdom.
The foot battle in the arena between wild Slavic warriors who were good at using axes and the most elite cavalry in the kingdom attracted almost half the town to watch. The civilian audience packed the large arena. The three outer floors were full of moving heads, and the noise was so loud that it almost overturned the sky.
Those Slavs seemed to have been baptized not long ago. They spoke in an incomprehensible language, wore traditional Slavic clothing and equipment, and even had their bare arms painted with pagan-style painted war patterns.
Most of them carry sharp short axes on their waists and carry a large buckler on their backs like the Vikings. Some of the big, stout men simply held a large two-handed battle ax or hammer.
"Hey old man, look at that man!" In the bustling crowd, the old potter, whose bags under his eyes were a little deeper than the previous few days, found the plump businessman and pointed to a tall figure among the Slavs in the distance. .
I saw that he was a bald man with war patterns painted with strange symbols on his face and arms. He had a long golden beard with dried blood stains and wore a pair of loose dark blue trousers. , wearing a pair of strappy boots. But what's a little funny is that such a foreign-style warrior actually has a string of silver cross pendants around his neck.
"My God, don't tell me that he is one of God's people like us?" The fat businessman swallowed in fear, as if he recalled a nightmare memory.
"I have never seen a pagan who wears a cross. This guy has probably just been baptized not long ago. What's wrong, my old man? Your face looks very bad!" The old potter's hair seems to be grayer than before. At this moment, he looked at the fat businessman with dull eyes and blue face with some worry, wondering why he suddenly became like this.
"I, I'm fine, I just remembered that time when my caravan was robbed by a group of Slavic barbarians who were like hungry wolves. God, that was such a terrible experience." The fat businessman held his head and shook his head, taking out the belt from his belt. He took out the kettle, took two sips of wine, and wiped his mouth.
The game was about to start soon, and Simon had already made a lot of money from Baron Edmund, so he didn't place any bets on who would win this time.
Simon learned from Regel that the odds of losing a bet on Baron Ernest were particularly high. It seemed that no one was very optimistic about the group of Slavs who came from the barbaric land, what they called "barbarians".
It's not unreasonable for the merchant who opened the betting market to dare to set the odds like this. Although those Slavic warriors seemed to be of good strength, after the fight actually started, they were defeated by the close cooperation of the elite Baron Ernest's private soldiers. They were defeated one after another and defeated one by one, showing their decline.
Although these Slavs were very powerful and brave individually, they lacked organization and cooperation. This was the main reason for their defeat.
"Hoo ho!"
The sky above the arena was filled with warm cheers and applause. Baron Ernest, who was covered in the blood of his enemies, was bathing in the glory of victory. He was undoubtedly the protagonist of today's event, even overshadowing the king.
On the other side, the Slavic warrior leader wearing a closed helmet with eye protection, brass scale shoulder pads, and Slavic-style decorative chainmail took off his leather gloves tied with scale splints and looked at the ground. The corpse and the surviving companions covered in bruises sighed.
"Next is the knight's individual martial arts competition." Simon thought silently in his heart, stood up, and left the noble wooden stand with Regel.
"Master?" The fat man held Lucky and walked towards Simon with a shy smile.
"Let's go to the weapons shop in the town. I think I need to buy some lances." Simon said thoughtfully, stroking the long beard on his chin.
In fact, a knight's personal jousting consumes a lot of lances. The most talked about scene is when the knight's lance hits the shield and is shattered by the strong shield.
It is said that when a wealthy knight traveled around Flanders in the 13th century, he asked his attendants to bundle colorful lances into bundles of five, and each person carried one bundle. The forest of hundreds of lances was so spectacular that it followed the knight in one tournament after another, so much so that some people accused the knight of being a "tree abuser."
………………
The knight's personal competition began the next morning.
On the grass of the arena there were still traces of blood and fragments of human organs left in yesterday's melee, and the unpleasant smell of blood and rancidity was exuding.
The wooden fence at the edge of the arena has been reinforced by royal craftsmen, because the enthusiastic spectators in the final melee yesterday afternoon wanted to get closer to watch the exciting fight between the two sides, but that in itself was not How can a solid fence support the weight of so many people pressing on it?
Beside the arena, the accumulated excrement left by unhygienic spectators and soldiers has been cleaned up overnight by the city's feces collectors, but at this time, disgusting feces can still be seen on the ground. Star particles and incompletely digested excrement.
Civilian spectators and aristocratic spectators arrived one after another. Simon noticed that there were many more aristocratic ladies and ladies in the front row of the aristocratic stand today than in previous days.
The first to appear were two famous knights.
At this time, they were putting on armor in the team's preparation area with the help of their attendants, while not far away, the knights' stable boys were struggling to put on chain mail armor and bright heraldic horses on the horses. Clothes.
"It's warm-up time now." Regel in the noble stand watched excitedly as the two knights who had already put on armor rode their respective horses around in the competition venue, enjoying the warm cheers and blessings of the audience.
After the chubby herald made a gesture to start the game, the two knights passed by each other slowly on horseback, stretched out their right hands to shake hands in a very graceful manner, and then trotted quickly while holding the horses' bellies. Returned to his waiting area.
"Mr. Kyle!"
At this moment, at the wooden fence next to the knight's waiting area, a gentle and clear cry made the young knight pull back the visor on his face and turned his head away in confusion.
"This is for you, my lady Lina!" A young lady wearing a yellow dyed dress and a white turban handed a small handkerchief with a rose pattern to the knight.
"What a beautiful handkerchief. It will bring me good luck, victory and honor! Please thank the beautiful Miss Lina for me." The young knight took the handkerchief, raised a smile at the corner of his mouth, and said The maid who came to deliver the token nodded, turned the horse's head and pointed it in the opponent's direction again.
"Ride a spear for me, Bowen, and let the son of a bitch across from you taste my power!" The young knight put away his smile, put his handkerchief into the leather belt around his waist, and pulled down his helmet cover again. Holding back his slightly red face, he rode up and took a long log-colored spear from the attendant, clamped the horse's belly and sprinted towards the opponent at high speed.
