[b]The next day[/b]
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Even as night came and went, activity went on in the city. Devoted cooks saw to their cuisine, night-shift stewards and builders carried out the very last preparations, and orders changed hands. Night over Mullen was peaceful and unusually quiet for the capital city, itself seeming to wait breathlessly for the morning and its revelry. Early in the morning, the ordinary trumpet fare was sounded in the palace, waking its inhabitants to the schedule of the day but heralding nothing ordinary for them. Stores and inns opened to what was assured to be the most lucrative three days of the year for them, and in fact the celebration of the common in the street began a step before the nobles and their morning feast. Naturally, the palace walls were still open to the world at this phase, and would remain so for a while. The fair grounds by the palace had been converted, now housing tents and stands of all manner surrounding, of course, a dirt runway where the tournament was to be held. Crowds filled both the fairground and the palace, making it difficult to ascertain who was where, and naturally the watch were scurrying about on edge trying to keep the schedule. Bard II had yet to emerge from the castle, meeting with his council and choice few knights early in the morning before he would lead them to the feast hall where the majority of guests were gathered. After all, he had to name a champion today, among other more political affairs. Both blended into the crowd, Karl Leid had already situated himself at a table and was enjoying the bounty he'd come to the capital for in the first place, and the steward Wallace was no doubt touring the grounds with the blue-tied entourage.