by A Van Wyck
“Red, ready!”
Through the barred grill, he saw Norvalis signal the ringmaster, sword settling into a ready guard.
“Green, ready!”
He signaled that he was.
“Begin!” the ringmaster called.
Errom stumbled into yet another person in his mad dash.
“Watch it!” the big man hissed at him as he skidded and almost fell. Oblivious, he ran on, or rather, tried to. But someone had stolen his legs while he was passed out on the alehouse floor. Whoever’s legs he had now must have been drunk because these couldn’t run worth a damn! He did the best he could with them.
Fortune flog me, his fevered mind gibbered, even his mental voice managing to slur. Master is going to kill me!
Stupid legs!
The ground jumped up at him – again – reaching for his face but he managed to beat it away. Possibly it had succeeded in an earlier attempt, he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t feel his face.
Fortune’s fickle fanny, let it still be there!
That would be all he needed now, to be the man with no face. Suddenly convinced it was gone, he probed at it with panicked hands. Sadly he couldn’t feel those either.
Why was it suddenly so dark?
Whack!
Someone had hit him in the head!
“No, get away!”
Clawing at his assailant, he realized he was on the ground, raking furrows in the dirt.
“Sorry,” he apologized, stumbling upright on a stranger’s legs. He’d already taken two steps before realizing he was going the wrong way.
“Stupid things!”
He wheeled, the uncooperative appendages almost depositing him in the dirt again. Glaring down at the accursed things, it suddenly occurred to him that this was very funny. Someone else must have noticed because they started laughing. Which made him angry.
“Stop that!”
But there was no one there.
Oh no, it’s me laughing.
Strangling the absurd squawking, he stared at hands he couldn’t feel where they clung to the edge of a stall. He glanced up at the stall’s owners. Who stared back at him. They must have been drunk, because they were blurry.
Wait… clung to?
He’d stopped running!
“S’not funny!” he yelled at the surprised vendor as he beat his… no wait… beat some stranger’s legs into a run again. And he had to beat them, swinging his fist repeatedly at the obstinate thigh that refused to cooperate.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit,” he chanted as he ran, swinging his fists.
He missed and struck his bait-and-tackle a glancing blow.
“Hoooomphff…!”
His borrowed legs drew up from under him mid run and he tumbled into the dust.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” he breathed as he rolled around of the ground.
But he had to get to the master. Master needed him!
Straightening with a whimper, clutching his precious bits, he set off with all possible speed, which wasn’t much. He settled for dragging the uncooperative right leg behind him.
“I’m c’ming, masser!” he yelled ahead. “Ol’ Errom’s almost there! He’ll have you ready for the shord rout… spord bout…” he gave up “…in no time at all!”
Honestly, all this sword foolishness! All for nothing, if you asked him. Which no one did. They should! They should ask him and he’d tell them! He’d tell them… He’d tell them that young men that age should be spending their time on girls! Not fencing practice! That’s what he’d tell them!
But, oh…
How upset the young master would get over the stupidest, most incon… incontinent… inconsider– over the stupidest stuff!
Twenty years! Twenty years, he’d been working for the Norvalisesses -es! Served the lord, he had. Served the elder brother too! And now this… boy!
Errom, where’s my baldric?
Errom, why isn’t this sword oiled?
Errom, why haven’t you replaced this grip?
Errom, you stink! Fortune’s fetlocks, did you pass out in a pigsty again?!
Errom, I’ve warned you! If drink keeps you from my service one more time, I’m selling you to a slave galley!
Oh, fortune’s favor! Poor Errom! Pulling oars on a slave galley! With not a drink in sight!
He tried to increase his frantic pace and pitched sideways into a woman carrying a basket of waxpaper packages. Which exploded. Sausages and sauce went everywhere.
“I’m c’ming, masser!”
A furious woman with a sausage growing out of her forehead was screaming at him, shaking her fist. What was her problem?
He turned the last corner and there was his master’s tent.
“Oh, thank goodness, thank goodness–”
He skidded straight into the tent.
“I’m here, master! I’m here!” he yelled, as he plunged straight in among the dueling gear. Leather armor, their buckles trailing, flew wildly.
“I got here as soon as I could master,” he continued breathlessly, “but you wouldn’t believe what happened! I was – waylaid – Yes! I was waylaid on my way back from the smith’s shop!”
He stuffed his arms full of all the armor he could reach, not quite believing his own creative genius as the story seemed to unfurl itself spontaneously from his mouth.
“They took the money you gave me for the steel stocks, master! I didn’t even think of buying drink with it, honest!”
He turned toward his master.
“You should have seen’em, master. Three, no five – no eight! – eight of them jumped me, all twelve at once! But I showed’em, master, I showed…”
He stumbled into silence, his bloodshot eyes roaming the inside of the empty pavilion.
“Master?”
There was a faint groan, prompting him to look down.
“Master…?”
The master lay crumpled limply atop the unconscious form of Raméd, the master’s other servant. An ugly bruise was slowly rearing on Master’s forehead.
He stared down at them in stunned silence, a sausage slowly saucing its way behind his ear and down his neck.
From outside, faint through the thick weave of the tent, the matchcaller’s voice sounded.
“Keppin Norvalis of High Reach meets Marco dei Toriam of Tellar!”
“But…”
“Red, ready!”
“But…” he stammered again.
“Green, ready!”
A double armful of armor cascaded slowly to the tent floor to clang off master’s unconscious head.
“But… master, if you’re in here…” he turned slowly in the direction of the matchcaller’s voice, “…then who’s out there?”
“Begin!”
The palisade jarred into his back. Awkwardly, he fielded two more lightning blows before the ringmaster intervened.
“Break!”
He was suddenly ridiculously grateful for the grill visor that hid his wide eyes from the jeering crowd. He stared at Norvalis’s back.
Helia, but the man is fast!
He’d barely had time to blink before the lordling had been on him, driving him back with a flurry of successive blows. Rocked back on his heels, he’d only remained upright by dint of some very desperate footwork. Dazed and heavily impressed, he pushed off from the palisade, walking unsteadily back to retake his line. The foreign sword’s unfamiliar weight dragged at his arm and it had been too long since he’d sparred in proper weighted gear. The heavy leathers and iron plate felt uncomfortable and restricting.
But for all of that, the analytical part of his mind had begun to whisper to him. It was the part that had nothing to do with his adolescent self-consciousness. It didn’t care one whit whether the princess’s eyes were on him. It was the part that spoke in Master Crysopher’s voice. That part replayed his opponent’s opening moves for him in detailed precision.
He gratefully surrendered his fear and uncertainty to that part of his mind, where they were promptly shunt
ed aside as inconsequential. The stumble smoothed from him as he returned to his line. With the swordsman in him alert, he could hear Master Crysopher’s hard, inflectionless voice whispering in his ear.
His eyes narrowed on Norvalis. The man hit like a hammer and those blows lacked nothing for speed or precision – but the style had been rudimentary and lacking in serious intent. The lordling had been feeling him out, gauging his skill.
If the set of the man’s back was any indication, he’d failed to impress.
He was only up by two points.
Let’s change his mind…
He retook his line and shifted into the second form, balancing on the balls of his feet. Norvalis’s sword rose to readiness.
“Begin!”
The lordling launched into another lightning attack but this time he was ready. He caught the first and second blows on the flat of his blade. Iron rang discordantly as Norvalis pushed forward, blows raining down like an avalanche. He was forced back a step, then another. But he was still deftly turning every attack.
It takes more energy to strike and miss than to parry, the toneless voice drilled through his head. He’d let Norvalis tire himself out.
He angled away from the palisade so the lordling was driving him around the perimeter and not into it, learning more of the man’s style with every blow he turned. Gradually, his backward progress slowed until Norvalis was battering at his defenses, unable to budge him.
He caught an incoming blow and slid it along his sword, adding some torque of his own to hamper the lordling’s recovery – and swept into the opening he’d created. Norvalis was forced to leap back to avoid it.
They spent half a moment in mutual astonishment. Norvalis apparently astonished at receiving a riposte and he at seeing it avoided.
The chink in the lordling’s confidence spurred him. Recovering his determination, he pressed his advantage, hard. Suddenly Norvalis was on the defensive. His short jabs and quick slashes weren’t intended to land, merely to busy the lordling’s sword while he read the man’s defensive pattern.
Sensing Norvalis’s frustration at this style of close fighting, he pressed in closer, focusing on the sword rather than the man. When he read anger enough to do something stupid in the rigidity of the parries, he eased his tempo, letting his sword lag as if in exhaustion.
Seizing this chance, Norvalis countered.
He let the lordling batter his drooping sword aside, controlling its trajectory. The expected cut arched at his shoulder.
Thank you, Bear… he prayed fervently.
Bulling forward, he stepped inside Norvalis’s guard – out of the path of the incoming sword – and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest.
Impossibly, the lordling twisted away at the last possible instant. But not enough to avoid the brunt of the impact. Norvalis stumbled and he followed doggedly, whipping his sword around at the man’s stomach. Off balance, the lord’s parry lacked power and he battered past it. His blunt blade scored a length across armored ribs, marking up a lighter weal on the thick leather.
Norvalis recovered faster than he would have thought possible and he had to step out of range of a furious backslash.
A space opened between them that neither stepped into, warily reappraising their opponents. Raised dust settled slowly back to earth. The cheering of the crowd was a far off buzz. More careful now, they circled one another. He could only just make out the glimmer of eyes behind Norvalis’s faceguard. The controlled tread and rigid sword indicated the man was ready to take him seriously. Somewhere far away, the ringmaster announced the score. Two points each. He barely heard.
Their circling slowed. He tightened his grip, bracing for the rush.
Then something strange happened. The lordling’s stance shifted, breaking pattern. He felt an unaccountable wave of unease rise in him as he regarded the suddenly relaxed shoulders and unfamiliar form.
He almost missed the attack when it came. It struck with such force his blunted sword screeched in protest.
Holy–
There was no time or attention with which to finish the thought. Norvalis was a blur. Parrying desperately, he found himself the epicenter of a whirlwind of blows. Each one struck with such ringing force they juddered numbingly to his shoulders. He looked for the man he’d just fought in the style he was seeing and couldn’t find him. It was like he was fighting a completely different person. The speed, strength and skill were so unlike a moment before it was all he could do to try and stay ahead of the tide. He wove a desperate skein of defense around himself. But he was losing ground. He stepped back again and again, the attacks so swift and savage he could spare no thought for angling himself away from the palisade. He felt the hard wood slam into his back just a moment later.
“Break!”
The ringmaster’s voice was lost in the ring of metal on metal as Norvalis continued to press him, pounding him into the palisade.
“Break!” Louder now.
The brutal assault reigned unabated. A grimace contorted his face as he was forced to push his groaning muscles harder, hampered by the balk of timber snagging at his elbows.
“I said, break!”
A note of panic in that voice now, as the onlookers grasped what he’d only just realized: Norvalis wasn’t planning on stopping.
He could feel the killing intent behind the blows as they skipped from his flagging defense. His arms threatened to seize under the strain and it was suddenly all he could do to put the blunted iron between himself and the monster sharing the ring with him. Impossibly, the sword leaping at him increased in speed, playing a symphony of jagged metal on his failing defenses. He could feel himself slipping... Slipping…
His breath rasped heavily in his throat. His awareness narrowed to a single point of light, tainted red, that contained only Norvalis and his sword. The melody of tortured metal echoed down the length of a long tunnel, bouncing and fracturing like a thousand chains, rattling in unison. He could feel himself fainting.
A growl built somewhere deep in his chest and rolled from his mouth just as something hard slammed into his side. The chains in his ears snapped taut, pulling him down into unconsciousness.
Dennik had been watching the royal pavilion, so he’d seen when Marco and the princess left. Their escorts’ distinctive halberds made it easy to follow at a distance through the crowd. No one would think it strange to see a guardsman shadowing the princess’s party more closely but his instructions had been to remain circumspect. And he’d rather not have Marco see him.
His latest summons to the elder princess’s presence – last night – felt like a nightmare, so unreal did it seem now in the daylight.
“You have befriended the foreign boy,” she’d said.
“As you commanded, highness.”
He’d immediately regretted glancing up. He’d had to grasp for his next words.
“He appears to be no more than he seems,” he’d continued, swallowing the knot in his throat. “He admits to being an orphan, adopted into their temple at a young age. He’s well educated and well spoken. He thinks like a scholar or scribe but, as I’ve told you, he fights like neither. His knowledge of Renali history and society is extensive but no more so than one would expect of a delegate. He speaks of the foreign priest in their party as of a father or beloved uncle. He is young and naïve but I believe he is kind and genuinely well-meaning at heart.”
Long moments of painful silence followed in the wake of his report.
“Continue,” she’d commanded at long last.
He’d cringed. Of course she’d seen there was something more. He hadn’t meant to say the rest, not only because he’d felt it was a betrayal of Marco but also because he’d been unsure how the elder princess would take the news. He’d spoken haltingly.
“Highness,” he’d hedged, “please understand, I mean no disrespect–”
“I have little patience for procrastinating, guardsman,” she’d interrupted. “Speak.”
“
Yes, highness.”
He’d taken a deep, calming breath that had had no effect whatsoever.
“From the way he speaks, I suspect…” he’d finished in a rush, “I suspect he has a romantic interest in the princess Dailill.”
He’d squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the command that would end his career. Or possibly his life. The moments had dragged by.
“He has not admitted as much to you.”
“No, your highness,” he’d rushed to confirm. “I doubt he himself is fully aware.”
More silence.
“Tomorrow,” she’d said at long last, “will be the first day of the festival. You will be assigned a post as attendant guard in my own retinue. You will observe my sister and this smitten child from a distance. You will follow where they go and you will ensure you are not seen. Report to Lelouch, here, at sunup tomorrow.”
“As you command, highness.”
He shivered despite the bright daylight. Palace politics didn’t seem any less murky today than it had yesterday. He was fairly certain he’d gone and found himself on the wrong side of some kind of line. But as for whose line it was, or even where exactly it was drawn, he was at a loss to say. It seemed he and Marco were now on opposite sides now. That pained him. True, he’d only befriended the boy on the elder princess’s say-so. Dammit, he just had to remember their friendship was a fiction! A ruse! Nothing more!
So why does following him like this feel like the blackest kind of betrayal?
They’d trekked along the main artery of the festival grounds, passing other tourney events, such as the long spear enclosure and the quarterstaff ring. These drew fewer spectators than the ever popular joust but by no means went unobserved. He’d thought the princess was leading them on a shortcut through the thick crowd and into the next ring of the festival grounds where brightly dressed jesters refereed a menagerie of friendly games. He was therefore surprised to see the royal party stop at the official sword tourney ground.