[Tancred]

"What can you possibly have against the Lady de Gossard? She's one of the favourites of the Tournament circuit these days, sirrah!"
"Of course she is, Rupert!" Tancred snaps. "She's a rotten, low-down cheat!"
"And a complete bitch," adds Karnas, in what he clearly believes is a helpful tone of voice.
"And worse, she's the kind of cheat that gets away with it, and that really goes against my grain," the young Paladin finishes. "You remember Tybault de Carentan?"
"Tybault... Tybault..." Rupert's mouth tries the name on for size. "Tybault... OH! Wait! Tall, strapping man, blonde hair, blue eyes... quite one for the ladies?"
Tancred nods. "Yeah, that was him. A good man, if you didn't count his weakness for a sprightly lass. An excelent jouster, a superb fighter, a master of horses. Well-versed in courtly etiquette and tourney courtesy. A perfect gentleman knight. No other knight dared challenge him; thoe he was drawn against quaked in fear."
"But... I thought he was defeated those four years past... he dropped out, took to drink, if my memory serves," simpers Rupert.
"A bad end for a fine knight. I remember it well..."
Tancred's eyes seem to mist over in a haze of recollection. "He was doing well in the Tourney of '43. He'd smashed de Rotto and y Mendoza in a straight one-run unhorsing. He was the clear favourite to take the prize that year. He would have been elected the Torney Champion for the next year, been able to play the role of Black Knight in the Tableaux de Battaile. It meant a lot to him."
"And then SHE took to the field. A newcomer to the joust, the first woman jouster allowed to compete in centuries. She defeated her first opponents well enough, butit was clear that the cedeing would have resulted in her coming against de Carentan."
"After she'd defeated her first foe, though, she trotted her horse to the stands where we were watching, and asked for Tybault's favour in the coming joust! Well... knowing Tybault as we all did, one thing led to the next, and I saw them leave the feast pavilion together. The next morning, Tybault is so exhausted - for some reason - he's barely able to stand up, let alone hold a lance. He's smashed into the dirt first tilt. It left her way clear."
"Now I remember!" Sir Rupert nods excitedly. "But... she didn't win that year, did she?"
"Well, er, no," Tancred mutters. "See, a bunch of us were really rooting for de Carentan... we liked him. He was ruined by that loss. We reckoned that... witch-knight nobbled him."
"Something like that," sneers Karnas.
"Anyway, me, de Guillam, d'Akwitayn and de Pott broke into the stables that knight and tipped four bottles of the strongest whisky we could find into her horse's water trough. Suffice to say..." and here Tancred grins, "her joust was an amusing sight."
Rupert nods, sadly. "Ah, de Guillam, d'Akwitayn and de Pott... such a shame."
Tancred's brow furrows. "What do you mean?"
"Well, you know... it's a shame."
"What is?"
"Their deaths, silly! Oh - wait - um, you don't know, do you?"
Tancred stares at the effete knight. "Know what? They're... DEAD?"
"Um... well, yes... rather tragic actually," Rupert goes on. "Old de Guillam was found in his pavilion impaled upon his lance three years ago. They all said it had been some kind of accident. There was d'Akwitayn - a goblet of wine he'd been handed during the inaugural feast two years ago exploded. We never found all of him... and de Pott, why, the poor man was found tied to his bed one morning a year ago, gagged and bled, with the word 'REVENGE' carved into his stomach."
Tancred's eyes bulge. "What the HELL did everyone say?"
Rupert squirms. "Um... some kind of brain-fever?"
Silence. Karnas makes a low whistling sound.
"I mean," quibbles Rupert, "I mean, I thought everyone knew about it...it's only because you haven't been around that you hadn't heard..."
Only because I hadn't been around, thinks Tancred. His eyes flick back to the spot where Ursula de Gossard had disappeared.
Oh dear gods...
His gaze moves back to Skye and Joram, still chatting away.
All of a sudden, the simple task of finding one rogueish bard did not seem so easy... and the enthusiasm of the joust vanished from his mind.