by A Van Wyck
An unrelenting sorcerous assassin sword master. Sweet goddess, what chance did he stand against something like that? He quested instinctively beneath his pillow for the ancient orin the king had gifted him, remembering yet again he’d given it to the princess for safe keeping. He’d gotten so attached to it he now felt naked without it. If the assassin was truly coming for him again, he needed a weapon. And, he realized, he had one. Nevertheless, it was with a distasteful twist to his mouth that he struggled upright.
He did not need to get up to open his traveling chest, which served as chair and bedside cabinet both. He dug through his scattered clothes and meager possessions to the bottom where the dead bandit’s sword lay wrapped in burlap. Bile swirled in this craw as he cradled it, fumbling at the twine ties. Finally it lay across his knees.
In his mind he heard again the screaming of horses and people, smelled again the smoke or burning tents. Had this sword killed any of his friends before coming into his hands? He remembered so little of that night. And what he did remember (the ghost of rage and bloodlust) he wanted to forget. He could ask for another sword, he was sure. He could probably demand the best sword the royal coffers could buy and get it. But this sword had sought him out and, for better or ill, he would wield it. He traced a finger along the bright steel of the blade and over the rough leather of the grip.
His hands stilled.
He sat motionless for a long time as his breathing sped. Suddenly fevered, he raised the sword to eye level, turning it over and over again in his hands as he studied it minutely. His mind raced, his eyes unfocused and he didn’t see the sword for a long time, simply sitting, before coming back to himself. He moved with urgency then, rewrapping the blade. Trembling fingers made a mess of the knots and he finally just stuffed it back in his trunk. Grabbing his crutch he set off down the corridor. It was near lunch time, Dennik would be in the barracks mess. He hurried, his wounds complaining at the pace.
Let me be wrong, he prayed.
He sat watching his bowl of thick stew slowly congeal. The hubbub of the barracks, a thing of comfort and camaraderie before, cut around him like an unfelt breeze. His eyelids sanded grittily over his eyeballs. The nightmares that plagued him were without form or definition. It was during his waking turns that he relived again and again the moment the assassin had plunged the dirk into young Marco. His helplessness curdled in a crucible of dark suspicion.
Most importantly, the elder princess had instructed, do not approach and do not interfere.
And he knew that the deep waters of palace politics, that he’d felt lapping around his ankles that first day, had finally closed about his head. Through their murky depths he saw the elder princess Villet’s interest in Marco anew. He found himself eyeing the cold eyed man that was her constant bodyguard.
Enderam Lelouch. A master swordsman by all accounts. He couldn’t remember having seen the man the day of the tourney. Now he couldnt stop seeing him, his imagination cloaking the figure in tourney armor.
Fortune’s pitiless fulcrum, these thoughts were treason!
He groaned, lowering his head into his hands, fingers clenching in his hair and moments from uprooting two handfuls. He really was not cut out for this spy business.
“Your friend is here,” a guardsman near him rumbled. He looked up to see the man nod in the direction of the doors. “Looks like he’s got a bee in his bonnet,” the guard opined, taking a halfway finished plate to another table. Guilt burned him as he watched Marco hobbling between the tables, gaze searching over the assembled guardsmen. He struggled to compose his face–
Definitely not cut out for this spy business.
–and stuck his hand in the air. Marco hobbled over.
“Hey,” the boy greeted with uncharacteristic informality.
His crutch very much in his way, Marco clambered onto the proffered seat.
“How’re you feeling?” he couldn’t help asking. The boy did look better. But it would have been quite a feat to look worse than the rendition his memory offered at every opportunity: pale, pasty, blood spattered and unbreathing against the churned dirt of the tourney ground. He bit his cheek to dispel the image.
“Much better, thank you,” the young scholar said, seemingly by rote. He controlled his alarm. The boy’s perpetual decorum was slipping.
He’s found me out.
The thought burst into the front of his mind like a boar from a thicket.
“Missed the spectacular grub, did you?” he said the first inane thing that came to mind. The comment fell flat. He feared he might follow, his nerves twanging like a bow string. He was rewarded by a faint smile nonetheless.
“That as well,” Marco nodded, obviously making an effort at the usual courtesy, though it felt stilted. “How’ve you been?”
Was this how it would be between them from now on? Pleasantries and forced levity? Neither admitting they knew the other to be false? It would be unbearable.
“I’m not the one with a hole in my middle,” he quipped halfheartedly, though the words almost choked him. “You’ve really started picking up the accent,” he tried steering the conversation away from the wound he might have had a hand in causing. “You’ll be sounding like a born Kingsman by season’s end.”
“Strive for excellence in all that you do,” the boy nodded. “That’s what Keeper Justin says.”
Keeper Justin.
The pagan priest who’d come bursting through the crowd. The old man with the commanding eyes who wore power like a cloak, who could make the sky clap thunder and conjure fire from steel. And who could reach into the realm of death and draw a soul back against the current.
Fortune’s balding balls, I’ve never been so scared in all my life.
He could still feel the unholy magic slithering across his skin, making his hair stand on end. He’d have left his ruined dagger if he hadn’t feared someone might recognize it. It had gone straight into the fire and then into the lake, a brief billow of steam marking where it’d sunk. He swore he could still smell the scorched metal on his hands. They were raw from scrubbing.
And then there was Marco himself. There was not so much as a hint that the boy’s life was the product of magic. But he’d seen it with his own eyes.
He regarded the watery ale in his mug, wishing for something stronger.
“I thought that gave you gas?” the boy queried, watching as he took a long swallow.
“I’m on the circuit today,” he excused, trying to smile. “No one’s going to hear.”
He took another draught.
“I’ve been wondering,” Marco said hesitantly.
“Yes?” he prompted, tensing.
“Who makes the weapons and armor for the Royal Guard?”
Which was completely not the question he’d been expecting.
“How do you mean?” he asked carefully.
“When you join – or get accepted–” the boy amended, misinterpreting his frown, “you are obviously issued new armor and such, as part of your uniform, right? I was just wondering who made it.”
“I’ve never really thought about it,” he answered honestly, taken aback. “Most of the basic stuff, the tunics, the leathers, the mail and such are contracted out to the guilds. Some of the more difficult pieces that require special attention – like the royal cavalry helms and shields and such – are supposedly made by the palace armorers. But you’d have to ask the armorers themselves to know for certain which items are theirs. Why?” He questioned in return. “Thinking of having yourself fitted for a set?” He smiled at the unlikelihood of that.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” the boy scoffed, not nearly as dismissive as might be expected. “And the swords?” the young man pressed, apparently unaware of the fevered light that kindled at the question. “What about the swords?”
The strange behavior immediately put his guard up. But the subject was harmless enough.
Just act natural.
“Well,” he complied, trying to be thorough, “like I
said, most of the basic stuff gets handed to the guilds. But the more prestigious guard classes,” he preened, indicating himself, “have their weapons made by the royal smiths here in the palace. And basically everyone above the rank of captain gets their swords directly from the palace forges. It’s a bit of a status thing,” he admitted sheepishly.
His friend drew a shallow breath. “Your sword?” the boy questioned, voice unaccountably hoarse.
He raised his eyebrows. “Mine?” Marco nodded. He moved so he could draw the scabbarded sword across his knees. “Royal Guard issue,” he confirmed, remembering the swell of pride he’d felt upon receiving it. Serving the royal family had turned out to mean something entirely different than he’d imagined. “Made right here by the finest smiths in the kingdom.”
When he looked up, the boy had blanched. He frowned. “You all right? You look a little peaked.”
“I’m fine,” Marco managed breathlessly. “Just a little pain. My wound…” the boy trailed off. “I think I’ll go back to my room.”
Alarmed, he reached to help the boy get to shaky feet but stopped short, remembering what he might be touching. Marco said no farewell, stumping off on the crutch.
Oh, Marco, he thought despairingly, you’re not cut out for this spy business either.
He rose to go find Enderam Lelouch.
He stumbled from the barracks on weak legs, his head spinning and a hollow ringing in his ears. He leant heavily on his crutch, feeling like he might sick up.
He didn’t want to believe it, but the evidence was compelling. He’d almost swallowed his tongue when Dennik had shown off his guardsman’s sword. The glossy steel, the tapering blade, the curved guard – pommel to tip it was an exact replica of the sword at this very moment lying in his trunk upstairs. A sword taken from the hands of a dead bandit. A bandit who had ridden against their delegation on the eve of their entrance into Renali territory. Bandits who had disappeared without a trace scant bells before the king’s Royal Guard had arrived on the scene.
Merciful Mother… he leant against a wall as his gorge rose.
Not true, not true, he argued with himself, shaking his head. His assassin paranoia had him seeing threats in every dark corner, that was all. What did he know of Renali sword making? The design up in his room might be as common as grass. He didn’t know.
But he would find out.
His feet carried him to his room without his noticing. The sword made an awkward parcel as he hobbled along the corridors.
“The palace smiths?” asked the first person he came across, a woman dusting vases in a broad corridor. “Why certainly I know how to get there…”
He took a wrong turn twice before following the ring of steel through the huge, bronze banded doors and into the furnace-like heat of the royal forges. He hobbled up to the nearest man swinging a hammer, already undoing the twine ties of the wrapped sword.
Pacum Della had been working with metal since he was a boy. He’d helped his father, a farrier in a small way village, from almost before he could walk. By the age of eleven, there hadn’t been much more his father could teach him. His pap had been a simple man, dead these past twenty years, and ambition had been alien to the simple soul. Against his father’s wishes and bowed beneath curses and disownment, he’d traveled to the city. Despite his professed skills (and his best efforts at coaxing, wheedling and – finally – begging) he’d been refused apprenticeships by blacksmith after blacksmith. Days from starvation, he’d finally found work as a junior farrier, again, with a noble house in the city. Not what he’d wanted but it earned him food in his stomach and a roof over his head. And all the kicks and curses he couldn’t dodge.
He’d just about decided to go begging back to his father when he’d been shipped out with the levies, men the lord of the house was oath sworn to field in times of war. He’d been just thirteen and very young, never having kissed a girl or won a fight. He wasn’t even issued weapons and his first taste of war had been standing in a coral, trying futilely to keep the Lieutenant’s spare horses calm while a midnight raid engulfed the camp. His regiment had been badly mauled, only barely managing to escape under cover of darkness. Dawn found stragglers stumbling into their makeshift camp, leagues away. Weary, battered and bloody.
With him the nearest thing to a surviving blacksmith they’d had, and cut off from their supply lines, he’d been assigned the task of field repair. Mending mail and armor and notched swords as best he could. When he and the dregs of his regiment finally rejoined the army, he had a fresh scar and an even fresher smith’s apprenticeship waiting for him. The Lieutenant had insisted.
Horseshoes were fine, but swords and armor spoke to him and his skill had spoken for itself. At eighteen he’d been summoned by Kerrick Kohlman, at the time the Royal Master Smith. Kohlman had been a difficult man, a habitual drunk and an absolute incompetent… until he picked up a hammer. The man had been a magician with iron and steel. He’d learned much from the old man, including what it looked like to die of a slowly hardening liver. He’d been the Royal Master Smith for the last fifteen years or so. Happy years.
“The foreign lad?” He asked of his guest, turning the man’s sword over in his hands. He paid only half a mind to their conversation, studying the weapon minutely. He ran his fingers along the edge, checking for nicks or signs of faulty sharpening. He found none. His guest was a man who knew how to look after a blade.
The swordsman nodded in the affirmative, a man of few words. He could appreciate that. Words got in the way, could be misunderstood or taken out of context. There was nothing ambiguous about a drawn sword. He held it up to his eye, squinting along the blade to check for warping. “Aye, he was here,” he answered his guest’s previous question. “Came in to ask about a sword he had. Never did say where he got ahold of it, now that I think about it.”
“What kind of questions?” His guest enquired in that peculiar monotone.
He flipped the blade on its flat, seesawing it over his index finger, pleased to find the balance remained perfect even after all this time. “Oh. He wanted to know if it was one of ours. I told him it was. Asked me if I was sure.” He scoffed his indignation. “Like I don’t know every piece that leaves my own forge? Even took it apart for him, showed him the Royal Forge sigil on the tang.”
And he wasn’t quite sure why he’d done that. Children weren’t to be humored. A more introspective man might have seen the ghost of his neglectful father in that thought.
“Not sure why it mattered to him.” He must be getting soft in his old age. He held the blade up to his ear and flicked it with a finger, listening to the healthy ping. “’Cept I could see that it did.” He stood back to make one or two experimental swings. The faint whistle as it cut the air earned a grunt of satisfaction. “Was a bit of an abused blade. Seen a little of the world, if you know what I mean.” He was death on anyone who treated his creations with anything less than the proper respect. Whoever that sword had belonged to would have gotten the flat of his hand if they’d brought it in, looking like that. “Not like this one, here,” he complimented, holding it up for a last, fond inspection.
He remembered this blade. He remembered all the ones he made with his own hands. A rueful smile twisted his lip. It seemed, as the years went by, he did more and more paperwork, leaving the metalworking to his score underlings. “Perfect as the day I made it,” he pronounced, handing the sword back, hilt first, to his guest, who slid it into its sheath with a precise movement.
The terse nod of thanks was all the farewell he got and the master smith nodded in turn, watching as his guest glided from the hot forge. Probably on his way back to wherever the elder princess was. You rarely saw her without her favorite bodyguard.
He grunted again. It was such a pleasure, knowing your creations were being used to their utmost potential. Lelouch was a lucky man to have a sword that matched his skill. Huffing, the master smith got back to work and gave the short conversation no more thought.
* *
*
“Tea?”
“How do you always know when I’m upset?”
Justin had offered the moment he’d walked through the door and, though he knew the keeper didn’t deserve his temper, he was too overwrought to rein it in.
“And don’t try telling me you felt me coming down the hallway,” he warned, limping toward the nearest chair. “I know that tea. That’s your rancid goat’s butter Marco-is-upset tea and it takes a bell and a half to brew. I know. I’ve timed you.”
“You look terrible,” his mentor smiled, unaffected by his tantrum. “Have you been getting enough sleep?”
“And don’t change the subject!”
“I was not aware a subject for your visit had yet been broached,” the priest’s smile slipped a fraction. “May I assume, since you’re jumping at any excuse to vent, that it’s something you’d rather not talk about?”
He scowled at the priest. “No wonder people think you’re a witch,” he muttered, and then his eyes shot wide.
“Keeper,” he stammered, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me. I–”
But the keeper was waving his apology away, chuckling good naturedly. Glass cups tinkled as the priest brought the tray over. You couldn’t use pewter or porcelain for that tea. It stained.
“Your current agitation has to do with that bundled sword in your hand, I’m guessing?”
Sighing, he set the sword on the table, loosening the knots and unwrapping it.
“Ah,” Justin breathed, “your ill-fated memento.”
He squirmed uncomfortably at having it referred to so, though he supposed the description was accurate enough. “It’s Renali,” he said.
“Unmistakably,” the keeper confirmed.
“No, you don’t understand. It’s very Renali. Made by the Palace Forges, only issued to the Royal Guard and other select officers, all tied to the royal family. The Master Smith confirmed it.”