by Rj Barker
Fureth’s warrior rolled his shoulder. He made my head ache. He was a mix of both gold and red, a roiling inferno of colour. A coldness settled upon me. I did not know what this man was, some strange mixture of the Landsmen’s fighting skills and arts in subduing magic? Was he linked to whatever made the menagerie? There was more going on here than I knew. The ice within hardened, was this a man meant to fight sorcerers? Did they know what I was?
No.
Fureth would not be skulking around in this temple to torture if that were so. He’d come with force and in public to humiliate Rufra with my arrest. What he said about Danfoth was probably true. But what was this man I faced? Why did he feel so—
Two strides and he was on me.
Fourth iteration: the Surprised Suitor. Jumping backwards out of the range of the sword that cut through the air, singing a sharp and wicked song. He comes on, not stopping, thick legs pumping, and I back up as the shield, white tree shining in the torchlight, comes at me. He fights in silence. Not a word, not a grunt. Before we are out of the light of the torches, he stops and retreats, slow steps until he is standing by Fureth again.
Curse him. If he had followed me into the darkness, with the lodestone lights of life burning about me, the advantage would have been mine.
“Afraid of the dark?”
He does not rise to the bait, does not reply with an insult like most warriors would. Simply stands next to Fureth and hides behind his shield.
“He will not speak, Girton Club-Foot,” said Fureth. “He is a silent warrior. His all is given over to the blade and the tree.”
I walked back into the light, stabswords at my side, and Fureth’s warrior planted his shield on the flags so as not to tire himself with its weight. The metal edging sparked in the dim light as it hit the stone. I had never heard of these “silent warriors” before, but I supposed if I was going to find a secret order of Landsmen I should not be surprised to find it here.
“Is this all your man will do?” said Vinwulf, incredulous. “Simply stand there?”
“Unless Girton engages him, yes. Part of his training is patience, and a fast warrior such as Girton always seeks the advantage by tiring a larger opponent.” Vinwulf nodded thoughtfully.
I came forward. The mirrored visor made the warrior behind it unreadable and he had placed the shield in such a way as to hide his feet. With the souring beneath me, the magic of the land was denied to me—not that I could use it in front of Landsmen—it left me devoid of my usual tricks and feeling strangely naked in front of this warrior, naked and confused. I came close, feinting at him, not going near enough to actually touch him, simply wanting to see his reaction.
Not once did he move. He may as well have been a rock.
I committed, not fully, not impatiently, only to see what he would do when really threatened. My blade came in and he raised the shield—so swift! The Conwy blade bounced off the shield and he followed up, forward, forward. Fourteenth iteration: the Carter’s Surprise. Tumbling to the left as his sword came round in its arc. Vaulting over it. There. The gap in his defence.
See.
Act.
A flash: my blade snaking out, the tip reaching for a point between his armour and helmet. Impact: sudden and massive. Pain: the ripping of flesh as the shield hits me and the tiny hooks dig in. The world tumbling and dancing as I slide over the floor until I hit the cage of one of the horrors of the menagerie. A thick pain as my back meets something solid, cracking at my spine. My hands convulse as if grasping to catch the air forced out of my lungs by the impact.
My blades?
The warrior coming at me, his sword high.
My blades are lost.
His caution gone, he comes on, silent, unnerving, and I am frozen like a praying lizard. For the count of one breath I think, “This is right. This is the Festival Lord’s prophecy being brought into being.” I ignored what they had told me. This is the price. The sword will come down. I will be ended and Rufra will have only one jester. His misfortune will be gone.
A sound.
The dance of metal over stone drawing my gaze. A blade on the floor, shining Conwy steel. I am filled with energy. Roll. Blade into hand. Landsman’s sword coming down. The mirrored face unreadable.
Twenty-fifth iteration: the Rising Tide. Using the momentum of the roll, springing off one hand, the stabsword extended for the groin of my attacker. My movement so sudden and unexpected he cannot stop, cannot defend. At the last moment I remember only to wound and bring the tip of the blade up. It carves through his armour, parting the wires that hold the enamel plates, entering his flesh between his ribs and going into his lung.
A stillness.
We stand. We watch. The silent warrior takes a step back and I withdraw my blade from him. He limps away. Drops the hooked shield first. Then his blade. His last few steps are faltering, his breath coming in great gasps as he comes to a stop by Fureth. His breathing is the only thing louder than my own as it fights its way in and out of my lungs. The air in the menagerie becomes thicker, hotter, filthier.
“He is wounded,” I said, pointing my blade at him.
“He is,” said Fureth. The silent warrior fell to his knees and Fureth motioned to two of the men with him. “Take him to the root of the tree. See he is cared for.” The men placed the warrior’s arms over their shoulders and carried the dying man away. “Maybe Danfoth is right, and you are the Chosen of Xus, Girton Club-Foot. I thought you were lost for sure when he hit you with the shield. I thought you had dropped both of your blades.” I did not answer. “I was sure my man was better than you.”
“I still stand. That decides who is better.” Behind me I heard Gamelon giggle. Vinwulf stood by Fureth and I could not fathom the look on his face. He seemed satisfied, not happy or sad, only satisfied, as if the violence had fed something within him.
“True,” said Fureth. I tried to slide my Conwy blade back into its scabbard but maybe I was more shaken than I would admit. Despite it being an almost automatic motion the blade would not fit. “There will be other times,” he said.
“I should take Girton back to his king,” said Gamelon, “unless you have another warrior you wish him to wound?”
“Not at the moment,” said Fureth. “I must think on what today means.”
“Vinwulf,” I said, “return with me to your father.”
“I have not seen all the menagerie holds,” he said. “Fureth has promised to—”
“I am Heartblade to your father and, as such, protector of you.” There was rage boiling within me at this boy who stepped around suffering so lightly and had nearly engineered my death. “You will return to the Low Tower with me. I am responsible for you and you have spent enough time with the Landsmen for now.” I could see a war on the boy’s face, a war between obeying me, as he had all his life, and throwing my words in my face.
“Go, Vinwulf,” said Fureth. “I have duties to attend to.” And he walked away into the gloom and the whimpering of the menagerie, leaving Vinwulf looking confused and young before he shook it off.
“Girton,” he said, “take me back to my father.” As he spoke I heard giggling in the gloom and Gamelon’s crowd of children and dwarves flooded out of the darkness to surround the seneschal.
“Go, Girton,” he said, “return to your king and tell him of our wonders. I am sure there is much I need to do also.”
“He will want to burn this,” I said, pointing at the cages with my sword. “You should do it now and save him the bother.”
“But, Girton,” said Gamelon, his face blank, “you presume your king will win the throne. If he does not then others may require entertainment. With Darsese gone there will be no more subjects for the menagerie. This is a unique collection.” He bowed to me and turned away, taking his crowd with him. As he passed the cages they flowed around his legs, cooing and squawking excitedly at the mewling inmates.
“Come, Vinwulf,” I said, “we should get out of here, it is a miserable place.”
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“I find it fascinating.”
I ignored him, choosing instead to study my blade which still stubbornly refused to fit back into its scabbard. I expected to see some damage, but there was none. Wrapped around the top of the blade was a rag of material and tied within that was a single tooth.
Arketh, the torturer.
She must have been here and slid the blade across to me, but why? Was she really so desperate to have me under her tools that she would defy the Landsmen of Ceadoc? It seemed madness, but then again there was no doubting the woman was broken. Who knew what drove someone who found their pleasure in others’ pain?
“I enjoyed watching you fight, Girton,” said Vinwulf.
“I am not sure you will enjoy telling your father that you made me fight,” I snapped back. The boy simply shrugged his shoulders.
“He will be angry at first, but he will forgive me.” He looked around the menageries, a smile playing about his lips. “He always does. And anyway, he will not be here for ever.”
Interlude
This is a dream.
She is unbecoming.
Once soft smooth skin is a landscape hillocked with callouses.
Once she had fine perfumes and now she stinks of stale sweat.
Once she danced for joy and now she dances for vengeance.
One Merela dies so that another Merela may live.
Wise Mother won’t let her stop practising, won’t give her a moment because in those moments it creeps up on her, the darkness. Ever since she first heard the voice it’s been getting louder. When the pain comes, when the grief comes—when she sees Vesin bending double as the blade hits. When she tries to see her father’s face in her mind. It’s only been months but the details are fading. Was his beard that dark? Was his skin that lined? Did he wear one ring or two on his left hand?
When she thinks of Girton.
“Work, girl!”
The whip lashes out, bruises her behind and she falls back to the first position. No, not position—iteration. This is not a dance, but it is like a dance. How she loved to dance, the beautiful, complex athletic dances of her home. So she moves, she dances: forward, twist, together, twist, take your partner by the waist, spin and
Kill.
She sees you, Bolin. Killer of her lover. Killer of her son.
Your face is clear.
Dance and
Kill.
She sees you, Gart. Killer of her lover. Killer of her son.
Your face is clear.
Twist and
Kill.
She sees your father, who controls you. Killer of her lover. Killer of her son.
His part is clear.
Spin and
Kill.
She sees the world that made them. That nurtured them. Allowed them.
She would tear that world down.
“Work, girl!”
The whip lashes out and she starts again. Through these iterations, again and again, hour after hour and day after day. She bleeds from her hands as each day bleeds into the last. Those few days when she doesn’t fall into bed and fall instantly asleep, Adran tires her out until she does. She has no time to think, no space to think, and she’s glad because when she does have a moment she hears the voice.
I can help you.
No.
I can make this easier.
Is this why they attacked her?
Was it really something as simple as the colour of her skin, or could they sense something more? Could they feel the magic inside her? Did they know? Is that why they killed her child, killed her lover, her family? Is it all her fault? Is it all—
“Work, girl!”
Move, step, twist, turn, duck. Move, step, twist, turn, duck.
On it goes. On it goes. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month.
When they do not train, Wise Mother tells stories of when the gods lived. Fantastical stories of a time when queens ruled and magic was as common as water. When there were no blessed, no living and no thankful, and life was not cruel and hard. In those moments of respite, she wonders if such a world is even possible while men like Bolin, Gart and their father live. When she fights, when she hits the training dolls, it is always their faces she sees. It is always their bodies she maims. It is always their world she cuts apart.
She dreams.
She dreams inside dreams.
A world torn down.
An older order restored.
A forest of blades that slash and kill, but the men holding them simply get up and continue to fight. Through it all is a path and the path splits into three. Down one path walks a woman, regal and powerful, and the trees and plants change and remake themselves as she passes. Down another she sees herself, holding the hand of a child, and that path is cold, cold as ice, cold as she is becoming. Down that path is a blasted wasteland of yellowed skulls and bones. And there is a third path, down that path is darkness—darkness and warmth—and it feels comfortable, welcoming. A small figure walks down it into the darkness where Xus awaits, his castle towering, filling the sky, becoming the sky, becoming everything. In her bed she shivers and moans and her lover wraps warm arms around her.
Of all the paths, that is the one that scares her the most.
Dreams inside dreams.
Her world torn down.
Remade.
She sits by the grave, tending the flowers, muscles aching, nails black with dirt. She watches Adran as she tends the garden. Watches Adran grow as straight as hauntgrass. Watches Adran become someone else. She has known her all her life, first as a slave, as a thing, as a part of the furniture. Then as a sister, as her father always treated her. And now as something more, something close and comfortable. But who is to say she must be any of those things. If a rich merchant’s daughter can train to be a killer, why can’t a slave girl train to be a rich merchant’s daughter?
At first the thought is funny. Adran, simple Adran, who washes and cooks and cleans.
But if she should change the world, why not start here? Why not start in this place? Kill a man he stays dead, but change his mind and ideas can be spread, and what better to change a man’s mind than a woman? What better revenge for a wronged daughter than to place a snake in a man’s bed and watch as the poison sucks him dry?
“Adran,” she says and the girl pauses in her gardening. “Don’t work. Let me do that. I think it better we keep your hands soft.”
She is unbecoming
“Don’t work, my girl.”
“Work, girl!”
“Yes, Master.”
They are becoming.
This is a dream.
Chapter 17
They had a celebration that night, for my return from captivity. But those who had played a key part in it, myself and Rufra, were in little mood for joy. I had found a place at the back of the room while Vinwulf sat by his father. You would not have known it to look upon him but he had spent the afternoon screaming at his father and being screamed at in turn—Rufra could barely look at him. It was not something I had wished to witness but I had been given little choice.
“Are you sulking, Girton?” I felt my master as she leant against me.
“I do not sulk, Master.” The words were worn and comfortable, like the wood of a favourite chair. “That boy troubles me.”
“What is new?”
“Have you seen the menageries?”
She spat on the floor.
“It is a foul place.”
“Vinwulf does not think so. He looked upon it like most look upon our dances.”
She placed her hand on my arm, a gentle and comfortable warmth.
“Your dances.”
“You taught them to me.”
“As another taught me.”
“Who were they, Master?”
She faltered, not physically, despite the weakness of her legs I had never seen her fall from her crutches. The faltering was in her voice, in the hand that slipped away from the material of my sleeve.
I nodded, staring at Vinwulf as he laughed with one of the guards by Rufra’s throne as Gusteffa capered before them.
“Families are complicated things, Master.” I stood straighter. “Does Rufra believe I did not kill Berisa?”
“He fought hard enough for your release.”
“That is not what I asked, Master.”
“In honesty, he is difficult to read. He needs you to be innocent of Berisa Marrel’s death, but whether he truly believes that?”
“He should.”
“He is only human.”
“He was my friend.”
“And still is, Girton. As much as a king can be.”
“Sometimes I think having a king as friend is worse than having an enemy.”
“You should stop thinking then.”
Aydor’s booming voice interrupted us. “Drink!” he pushed a cup of perry at me. “Ceadoc does good spirits. Even though it is a somewhat foul-spirited place.” He managed to look happy and confused at the same time—perhaps by his successful wordplay. A woman was almost propping him up—beautiful—they always were. Even though Aydor described himself as a toothless fat old man, he was magnetic. There was a joy in him that drew others.
“I cannot, Aydor,” I held it out for him, “it is not good for me.”
“Who cares?” A juggler passed, tumbling apples through the air and Aydor grabbed one, passing it to the woman at his side. “Have any Riders come from Maniyadoc yet?” He said it casually, though it was clearly not.
“Not yet, Aydor,” I said. “I am sorry.”
“Hessally is a grown woman, Aydor,” said my master, “you shouldn’t fuss over her so.”
“She is still my daughter,” he said, “and her mount is due to give birth. People have been killed assisting in mount births.”
“Aydor,” I said, “I have never seen another human with such a way around mounts as your Hessally. Even Xus loves her, I do not think you need to worry.”