There is certainly something amiss with this priestess, Robena decides. She hasn't been insulted before in such a strange way. The priestess has implied that she was dishonourable for even asking after her opponent before a match! She then advised her to beg Constance for use of one of her sacrifices as though she was powerless to intercede with Xristos without it. And in the same breath to speak in such a mercenary way about its value! She narrows her eyes askance at the woman, wondering if she is perhaps a faerie impersonating a priestess for some arcane trick. More likely she is merely dealing with a chatterbox with very strange opinions. 

"I already possess a crucifix, mater," said Robena steadily. "Moreover one that was cast in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as I am newly returned from the holy land. That should be sufficient for the new ways, but for the old I intend to ask Constance for a favour to bear into battle. You need not feel bound to these, ah, new customs of knightly secrecy when it comes to either of these facts."


And that indeed is the first matter of tournament preparation - to go down on bended knee before Lady Constance and request from her a favour for the tournament and offer to fight in her name. It would be a poor knight indeed who took to the lists without a maiden's kerchief to protect her. Robena herself has sat out a handful of tournaments when she could find no lady willing to sponsor her before the bouts. Some kingdoms consider her caution mere superstition, but she has not fallen from the saddle yet.

Apricot's regalia and her colours, however, are as faded from dust and rain as they have ever been. Robena has done what she could to polish her armour but she lacks coin and squire both, and so will have to ride dressed in the weathered and faded colours that unite all knights of the road.