Under the morning sun, the top of the five-story wooden platform was imprinted with a layer of warm red light. The flag of the White Tower and the flag of the Golden Rose on a green background stood side by side, fluttering happily in the warm morning breeze.
The elegant Sir Baylor Hyder left his seat and came to the railing of the platform. He smiled and gestured with his hands. When the audience and riders below quieted down, he announced loudly, "In the name of my father, the old man of the old town, Leighton Hyder, the 'Honey Wine River Tournament' officially begins."
"Wow —" The audience, whether they were standing at the side of the arena or sitting on the wooden platform, all stood up and applauded.
"Bang bang bang bang …" In the middle of the two wooden stands, the contestants crowded together also hit their shields on horseback.
Danny, who was at the side, actually did not hear anything. She only saw the others howling and hitting their shields with their swords. She also took down the oak shield hanging on her saddle, placed it in front of her, and hit it with her iron gloves.
"What are they doing?" She asked the old knight beside her.
The white knight did not sign up for the tournament, but as the mysterious knight's attendant, he had to stay by Danny's side at all times.
If Danny was alone, it would be difficult for her to even get up and down the horse. After all, the shields and spears used in the spear tournament were not small. Someone had to hand them to the contestants. Also, if an accident happened and they were knocked off their horses, an attendant would have to help remove their armor and rescue them.
"That is Sir Hyder, known as' Laughing Baylor '. As the heir of the old town, he is hosting the tournament on behalf of his father."
Without a doubt, the name of the eldest son of the earl's family came from the "blessed" Baylor.
In the ancient times of the Celestial Empire, this was almost an act of suicide. Not to mention having the same name as the emperor, even the words in the emperor's name could not be repeated.
But in this other world, giving a child the same name as the lord became a means to curry favor with the king.
Even if one did not want to curry favor with the king, using the name of the great king was also a blessing for one's child.
For example, the male lead in "Game of Thrones", Jon Snow, was named after Eide Stark's foster father, Jon Ayrin. Jon Ayrin's son, Theon Ayrin, came from Robert Byra.
As a matter of fact, let alone Baylor, the Old Man of Old Town, Count Raydon, had a daughter named Danny!
"Why didn't his father show up?" Danny asked again.
"In recent years, Lord Leidon and his eldest daughter, Moroya, have been staying in the Towering Tower to study magic."
"Study magic? How many years has it been? Could it be that because of what happened to his youngest daughter, Linise, he felt too ashamed to meet people and found an excuse to hide at home and not go out? "Danny suspected.
"No, not long after Lady Linise married Mormont, he began to shut himself in and studied the mysterious scrolls from Asha and Valleglia on the top floor of the Towering Tower." The old knight shook his head.
"So early? The magic wave hadn't even come back then. It was still the end of the magic era! " Danny became more suspicious. "No one knows a daughter better than a father. He must know his youngest daughter's temperament very well. The economic situation of Bear Island is no secret either. He probably knew that the couple wouldn't have a good ending, so he hid in advance."
"Uh …"
Although this made sense, the old knight still wanted to refute it. "Count Leidon's eldest daughter, 'Crazy Woman' Moroya, has never married in her entire life and studied magic in the Towering Tower. What do you mean? Maybe there was a breakthrough in her research and the count's attention was drawn to it? "
"You said it yourself. Miss Haithar is nicknamed 'Crazy Woman.' Crazy Woman …" Danny suddenly paused. She thought of Marvin.
In the past two days, she had asked around about Marvin. As one of the few professors in the City of Knowledge, it was easy to find out about him.
In his early years, Marvin had studied magic and occultism. After obtaining the Valleglia steel chain, he had gone to the distant East to "study abroad" for eight years. He had drawn maps, searched for lost books, visited wizards and shadow binders, and even learned the meditation techniques of the Moon Singers.
But when he returned to the old town, the scholars laughed at him. There was even a professor nicknamed "Vinegar" who gave him a humiliating nickname, "Magician Marvin."
In the City of Knowledge, which denied magic and advocated "science," being called a magician was an insult.
It was like a master of physics who had won the Nobel Bell Prize, but his colleagues called him a "metaphysician."
Maybe Crazy Woman Moroya was also one of those people who had been slandered and misunderstood?
So, the magic materials she had studied for decades might be real?
"The Towering Tower seems to be a tower too. There's almost no defense on the top floor," she said to the old knight tentatively.
“.....”
The old knight's face twisted as he struggled to squeeze out a sentence. "The City of Knowledge that records the history of the Seven Kingdoms is right next to us. If we really do it, we'll definitely go down in history in infamy."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa …" Just as Danny was about to say, "I rule the spring and autumn, and we're all saints," the crowd in front of her suddenly burst into cheers that were louder and more passionate than before.
"What's going on?" She stood on the saddle and tried to look ahead. She didn't know when, but there was a curly-haired girl around twelve or thirteen years old next to "Laughter" Baylor.
She was a little far away, so she couldn't see her face clearly. She was wearing a pure white dress embroidered with golden lace, and her long brown hair was naturally draped over her shoulders. Baylor was smiling as she placed a golden rose wreath on her head.
"Lelia, Lelia, Lelia!" Someone in the crowd shouted, and then the others followed suit. The scene was like a pot of hot pot soup heated by a three-thousand-watt induction cooker.
White Knight sucked in a breath of cold air and exclaimed, "Seven Gods above, the crown of love and beauty!"
"That little girl named Lelia is Baylor's daughter?"
"Yes, Laughter Baylor is about the same age as Prince Lega. His daughter should be about the same age. She's probably going to have her first period and can get married. Maybe Sir Baylor wants to pick a husband for her. "
After putting the wreath on her daughter, Laughter Baylor waved her arms and said something. Immediately, four knights in gorgeous armor stepped out of the crowd and knelt down on one knee below Lelia.
She was probably swearing that she would protect her crown and fight for her honor.
Baylor also knelt beside her daughter, kissed the back of her hand, and vowed to protect her daughter's crown.
Seeing this scene, the crowd below cheered even louder.
Although the Martial Arts Tournament was often held, the "Queen of Love and Beauty" was not always there.
Most of the matches were one-on-one turn-based. The loser would be eliminated, and the winner would advance to the next round. The winner of the last round would be declared the champion.
There was also a competition mode. The organizer of the tournament would let his daughter be the "Queen of Love and Beauty." Five powerful Guardian Knights would swear to fight for her honor.
After the elimination round, the other winners could challenge one of them. If the Guardian Knights could also advance, they could take their place after winning.
The final winner could choose the original woman to be the queen, or they could choose another.
For example, in the "Prime Minister's Tournament" held at the beginning of the story, there was no Queen of Love and Beauty.
Well, although the Knight of Flowers gave Sansa a bouquet of roses after one of his victories, Sansa was not the "Queen of Love and Beauty" that year. (Loras himself was not the "Queen of Love and Beauty". Every time he won, he would give a beauty a flower.)
First, the organizer, King Robert, did not elect a Queen of Love and Beauty at all.
He did have a daughter, but Princess Myrcella was too young to marry. The main purpose of the tournament was to welcome good friends, not to show off his daughter.
Secondly, the Knight of Flowers gave Sansa a rose, not a crown. At the time, he had only won one of the matches, and the finals had not even begun.
In the end, only the champion had the right to choose the Queen of Love and Beauty. The champion of that year was the Hound.
Of course, it could also be said that Sansa was the Queen of Love and Beauty without a crown, because the Hound only expressed his masculine urges to her …
"Sigh, the Hyder family is really full of talents. Lalia's crown will most likely be kept. Her five Guardian Knights — her father, two uncles, and two cousins — are all powerful True Knights.
Normal lords would never dare to hold a "Queen's Crown" tournament. It would be too embarrassing if the five Guardians were all defeated before the finals, "the White Knight said with a complicated expression.
After the five Guardian Knights were chosen, Danny and the rest of the contestants in the arena began to disperse.
This was the main arena. During the auditions, only famous noble knights had the right to show their might in front of others.
Wild knights, hired riders, and mysterious knights like Danny had to go to the "desolate" arena nearby to fight.
With two thousand five hundred contestants, the first round alone would take more than a thousand battles, and each battle would take at least half an hour. So, along the banks of the Honey Wine River, there were a hundred arenas.
Danny received the arena number "87." After walking north for more than a mile, she saw an arena that was less than twenty meters wide.
The arena was paved with soft yellow soil, sprinkled with water, and drawn with lime powder two hundred-meter-long lines.
The lines were ten meters apart, and in the middle was a wooden fence that was one and a half meters tall. The riders would charge at each other through the fence.
Beyond the lines were the audience seats. The arena was a hundred meters long and five meters wide. There was not even a guardrail, let alone a wooden seat. Were the organizers not afraid that the warhorses would charge out of the arena and kill the audience?
Sigh, they were not afraid, because other than the contestants, their knight attendants, friends, and family, there was no audience at all.
Dany and Barristan found themselves in such a desolate patch of yellow mud.
Looking around, they could see through thirty or forty arenas that were lined up next to each other. The land on the riverbank was so flat that there was not even a high hill. They could see the bottom at a glance.
"The first round of the competition has begun!" The emcee, whose leather armor was printed with a huge white tower pattern, stood in the middle of the arena and shouted, "'Shit Shell' Jimmy, 'Shit Shell' Jimmy, are you here?"
"I'm here, I'm here!" A sallow-faced man wearing a gray, worn-out iron armor hurriedly pressed the rusty iron helmet on his head, crying out, "Ouch, ouch."
Half of his head was stuffed in, and the parts below his nose were stuck outside. The middle-aged rider cried, "No, my nose is stuck. Bru, come and help me!"
"Bleeding?" The bearded man next to him exclaimed, "The nut is rusty and falling off, the helmet is crooked, and the nose is cut by it!"
"Profiteer, profiteer, damn profiteer, I spent eighty copper coins!" Shit-Shell Jimmy bared his yellow front teeth and, with blood dripping from his upper lip, cursed the Blacksmith Street vendor who had sold him the helmet.
"Hey, Shit Shell Jimmy, can you still do it?" The emcee couldn't wait any longer and shouted.
"Get me a pair of pliers," the bearded man called out.
The emcee shook his head. "We're not responsible for that. Jimmy, you can leave."
"Sigh, what bad luck. I wanted to show off my skills and maybe become the champion and put a garland on Miss Lilia's head …" Jimmy mumbled and waved his hand as his companion led the horse away.
Looking at the list on the parchment, the emcee continued shouting, "Mystery knight, Batman?"
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