A Chronicle of the Denver Horses and the Raiders from the North

I set down this account as it was told to me it should be set down, though I confess before God and the reeve both that I understood perhaps one turn in ten of what I witnessed, and even that turn I am not certain of. I was bid go up onto the mountain — for they call the place Mile High, and I took this to mean truly a mile up into the thin cold air, and I will say no more of it except that my ears did not pop and no snow lay upon the ground, which puzzles me still, and I have concluded the mountain is a tame one, kept indoors somehow, the way a lord keeps a falcon jessed.

The contest, as I came to understand it through long and careful watching, was between the Horses of Denver and a band of Raiders come down from the north, and I want it known plainly that I do not think this a metaphor, whatever the learned men tell me. I saw no horses. This troubled me greatly at first, until I reasoned that the beasts must be kept elsewhere, perhaps stabled beneath the great bowl of seats, and that the men running about upon the field were merely their squires, sent out to do preliminary battle while the horses rested — a sensible arrangement, if you think on it, for a horse is a costly thing and ought not be risked before the main event, and I waited the whole match for the horses to be brought out and was disappointed, though I did not say so aloud, it being no place of mine to question the customs of a mountain kingdom.

The Raiders I understood better, for raiders I have known — not personally, praise God, our hedgerow being spared thus far — but every village has its tales of the northern sort coming down in boats to take what is not theirs, and so when I heard these men called Vikings I nodded to myself, well, here it is at last, the thing the priest warns of, and I settled in to watch a proper sacking. And a sacking there was, though not the sort I braced for — for it was the Horses' squires who did the sacking, and did it thoroughly, thoroughly enough that by the reckoning kept upon the great glowing tapestry hung above the field, the tally stood four-and-thirty against a mere six, a rout so complete that even I, who cannot tell a down from a furlong, understood in my bones that here was a beating handed out and taken, and taken hard, and that the Raiders had come a long way south only to be sent home with very little to show the jarl.

I do not know what a "down" is, though I heard the word cried perhaps two hundred times, and I have decided privately that it refers to the moment a squire is thrown to the earth, which happened with tremendous regularity and always to great cheering, as though the crowd had wagered heavily on it happening and were pleased to be proven right. There was also much talk of "yards," which I take to be an old and sensible unit, no different from what my own father used to pace off the fallow field, and I was glad to find one thing in this whole business I could reckon with my own two feet.

But I will confess to you, chronicler that I am meant to be, that I spent far more of my attention upon a fellow near the base of the seats who tended a little cart on wheels, from which he drew forth long pink meats already cooked and tucked them into soft white bread and sold them to all who came, for coin, without any haggling that I could see, which struck me as either a mark of great civic trust or a sign that haggling has died out entirely in this age, and I do not know which possibility troubles me more. I watched this man work his cart with more devotion than I watched the field, for his labor at least I understood — a man selling meat from a stall is a man selling meat from a stall in any century — and I confess I stood by him near the whole of what they call the second quarter, marveling at how he kept the meats warm without any visible fire, which I set down plainly here as sorcery, for I have no other word for it and will not pretend otherwise.

There was, too, a beast — a great shaggy orange thing, man-shaped but plainly not a man, who danced upon the sidelines and struck poses and did not once join the battle, which I found curious, for if the Horses keep a beast of their own why not send it out to fight, it looking sturdier than most of the squires. I have decided it must be some manner of totem, kept to frighten the Raiders' spirits rather than their bodies, and by the final tally it seemed to have done its work admirably, for spirit is plainly the thing that was broken here, four-and-thirty to six being not a contest so much as a lesson.

The man in black moved among the squires the whole match with a small silver whistle upon a cord, and every so often he would blow it and throw down a yellow cloth, at which all the squires would groan as one and the crowd would either cheer or curse depending, I gathered, on which side of the hedgerow they sat, and I took this man for a sort of traveling priest, adjudicating sins as they occurred upon the field, the yellow cloth serving him as a rebuke serves ours, though ours does not generally require quite so much shouting afterward.

And above it all hung the great tapestry of light, forever changing its numbers, tracking the beating as it happened, so that a man too far off to see clearly — as I was, being seated where the cheap seats are seated — might still know exactly how badly the Raiders were faring at any given moment, which I thought a kindness, sparing us all the walk down to ask.

By the end the Horses' side of the crowd was in a fine roaring humor and the Raiders' side had gone quiet as a churchyard, and the squires filed off, and still no actual horse was ever brought forth, and I own I left disappointed on that single count, though satisfied on every other, for a rout is a rout whether fought with lance or with whatever it is they fought with, and four-and-thirty to six needs no learning to understand, only eyes, which I have, being otherwise a simple man.

The light is going now and there is a field at home wants tending whether I am here or there, so I must away and leave the rest of this shining age to sort itself out without me.

— Hodge o' the Field, who saw much and grasped little, and is content so