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!!Content Warning!!
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Hey, you probably already got from the writing and the tags that this isn't really a standard Isekai. It's going to get worse before it gets better.
Technically, all documentation fiction or otherwise is a power fantasy. I'm sorry.
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Even if I wanted to change this world, would I want to? The modern world was so cleanly evil. I had yet to understand this one. I didn’t want to destroy their innocence if that was really what I was witnessing.
Was this just self conscious paralysis, the sin of sloth?
I didn’t really think about getting swatted with sandbags over and over again, sand hurts, chafes and is heavy. So it at least feels like it does something. The horse was impatient and I assumed grumpy because it was tired. Apparently there were so many in the kingdom that if one was winded, or in a bad mood the rider could just use another.
Horsepower was very good for the health of any kingdom.
Who was paying for all this? Me? Ouch!
The culmination of the training/mustering event, which I had not missed all of, was the joust.
Some lord on my payroll, hah, the lackey rook from breakfast in fact, made a point about high performance during the hypothetical hour that seems darkest when also your body is ready to fail.
“Did we see him at the keep earlier today?” I asked the knight of platinum.
“Well he didn’t see us…” The knight responded.
“Jousting is a spectator sport isn’t it?” I asked. “Seems dangerous.”
“It’s a morale trick, a party before I take these boys out to run down pawns.”
“A show and no audience?”
“It’s war, we are the audience.”
“When was the last time you jousted?” I asked.
“Spring fair, I joust every year, what happened? You seem out of sorts sir.” My knight was concerned.
“Royals!? BE QUIET!” The lackey rook could project his voice.
As dutiful guardians of the state we silenced ourselves. On the way here the old knight of platinum had informed me that ‘Royals’ were the competition to beat in games. We were the bad guys in the sports movie where my kingdom cavaliers were the protagonists, I hoped they all got their girls.
Honestly it was a miracle the knight of platinum was in one piece, these horsemen did worry a bit about their safety. But they had no mouth guards. If any thought about long term injury they didn’t discuss it. Some of them had metal fingers, glass eyes, eyepatches, notable face scars. One was even jousting without his left arm. Many were young, but quite a few were over thirty. These guys were all winded from a day of training, I was fresh, from my calm stroll around my keep. Was it afternoon already? I looked for the sun.
Where had the time gone? How late had I awoken? I had done so little today.
And the impromptu joust without cheers or parties or audience began.
Double elimination, winners bracket met the losers bracket in the final four.
I went last, as if that sort of schoolyard discipline would convince the Lion he needed to be on time. Hardly the strangest thing, they were permitting their king to participate as a ‘stranger.’ To be festooned on any joker’s lance should they feel surly or get an unlucky hit. They don’t make meritocracy like they used to.
I placidly watched as the two polite young men who went first rode up to opposite ends of the tilt and then blasted off at each other over and over and over again destroying lance after lance. Most stayed on their horses, finally clad in their proper armor. There was no melee, not like the movies and dramas. Just a respectful competition between martial artists… err… soldiers… noble sportsmen? All very different populations.
I should name them all Ferdinand, Ferdinand von Aeigr.
The shadows grew longer, we didn’t have a good set of stadium lights. We had a few bonfires and braziers. And there were enough men that this was going to take long enough they were going to be lit .
If a knight didn’t de-horse the other they rode again until someone was or someone yielded. How many lances did we have?
On one hand I could observe, catalog each opponent, their weaknesses. As some savant calculator tuned for always winning never losing. But my mind wandered, because in the end it was a physics equation and what I thought now of what I did in the final seconds wouldn’t matter.
A man fell off his horse and didn’t move, likely our first concussion. A few squires ran out to attend him. The knight who unhorsed him discarded his helmet and dismounted to check upon the body.
No ambulance to steal their gold, no opiates to steal their minds, no insurance to deny them claims, no hospital to deny them service, no television to sell them experimental treatments for degrading cognitive function collecting interest on an active youth… And for want of a horseshoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost, for want of a rider the battle was lost, for want of a battle the kingdom was lost! And all for the want of a horseshoe… Six billion gorillias for whom the graves yawn. Each within his mulish days to choose his tools of trade… two opposing motherships shall not employ…
I was bored and it would be dark by the time I rode.
It was so wholesome to watch the horde of riders worry about their comrade. They brought him spring water and cold clear alcohol. They were dimly confused when the injured man was disoriented. I didn’t know much better, I had no access to the encyclopedias or internet to follow concussion treatment best practice. I only knew of electrolytes and water and rest.
Which they had covered with water, they were missing electrolytes and my kingdom rather seemed unable to understand the need for rest.
Was it moral for me to get these guys some tactical orange peels?
I counted on my hands, the seven deadly sins
I knew technology was one for a demon in ye olde 40-K universe. Technology was one of the four demons.
What sins did they represent?
A Demon of war and wroth and pride…
Another of lust and gluttony
Another of greed and pride (technology)
The last of sloth and gluttony again
The big, fat sick one was really hard to read. Was he really the sloth? Sloth made for a rather boring demon, more of a fellow human.
Where are all of those demons ones of gluttony? They all desired excess.
I stood with some of my armor off, but not my helmet, it hid my identity, the concussed man returned to the mass of observers at the sides of the arena. Despite myself I called out.
“Let him rest for he took the lance true!”
But I was just one voice of many.
Was the desire for excess a form of overpowering lust?
Or was it narcissistic pride and entitlement?
Let’s see
Gluttony pride, wroth greed and lust. I didn’t have seven fingers
Lust, greed, wroth, pride goes before the fall and gluttony.
What were the other two?
Sloth I didn’t fit on my hand and oh yes, most humble of all sins
Envy the one I couldn’t escape.
The riders were doing two passes to make sure they had more chances to bash each other with lances… gosh I was going to miss dinner. Fair for a war I suppose.
A poem composed itself in my mind
“Sloth shall never cross, envy always opened by my key, key to sin, key to win. Stay you humble, stay you temperate, stay you chaste, stay you patient, stay you kind, but you stay greedy for my rot, liberal with my gold, stay you far away from sloth, unless it’s me you may cross…
Seven virtues say one sin forever hidden close your eyes, I promise you shall see.”
The sun slid behind a mountain, the jousting continued. I did not sit. Thank goodness it was so temperate outside, this armor could have cooked me. Did this universe have cotton? I needed a cotton undershirt this woolly springy interior itched.
Knight Platinum tapped my shoulder. “Come with me.” He ordered.
Our little role play had me as the replacement he trained. But I detected this was more important business.