by Patrick, Den
He turned his attention to Giancarlo, the superiore. A broad slab of a man, Giancarlo possessed a wide face and heavy-lidded eyes. A fencing scar ran down his right cheek, parting the olive complexion with a dark exclamation. His hair was cropped and unfussy, deep brown and yet to show any grey. As ever, he wore his uniform, tan leather britches and a battered jacket reinforced with studs. His boots were immaculate, a product of novices currying favour. Two sashes in house colours were tied around his left arm displaying his allegiance, the statement redundant. All knew of Giancarlo’s unflinching loyalty, the favourite son of House Fontein. Another deep red sash was wrapped twice around his waist, marking him out as the superiore.
Lucien struggled to keep his expression neutral. There were few people in all of Demesne he wanted dead, but Giancarlo’s name was top of the list and underlined for good measure. Lucien gripped the hilt of his sheathed sword and forced out a calming breath.
It was then that he recognised one of the prisoners. Franco was in his late fifties and owned a large orchard on the Contadino Estate. The cider he produced was very popular across Demesne’s many hamlets and farmsteads. His forearms were like great hams from fetching barrels; iron-grey hair fell to his shoulders, now lank and greasy from imprisonment. Lucien liked him very much, even grooming his ponies on occasion in earlier times. Franco had always managed to make Lucien feel like a regular boy, never putting on the airs and graces required to interact with the Orfano. Many were the times Franco had rescued him from misery with a kind word.
‘Why are they here?’ said Lucien quietly.
‘They’re criminals,’ replied Giancarlo. ‘It has been decided that they can go free if they face you in single combat.’
‘To first blood?’ said Lucien, feeling a chill in his veins.
‘To the death.’ Giancarlo’s face was stony.
Lucien’s lips twisted in a sour approximation of a smile. He’d long known Giancarlo would stoop to any depths to unman him – he’d grown accustomed to it – but this was beyond the pale.
‘I’m a student of the sword, not an executioner. This is a farce.’ Lucien’s eyes locked on Giancarlo. The superiore stared back unperturbed. Lucien thrust out his chin and crossed his arms.
‘Golia had no such reservations when he tested three years ago. Still, if you’d rather cling to ethics I can fail you right now. And these wretches can return to a slow death in the oubliette.’
A novice appeared from behind Giancarlo in House Fontein livery, one of the Allatamento boys. His tunic was overlong, the cream hose sagging. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen summers, already gangly and awkward with the onset of puberty. He fussed at the farmers’ irons with a key and unlocked the three prisoners, scurrying back to Giancarlo’s elbow, where he waited with anxious eyes. He looked ridiculous in contrast to the threatening bulk of the superiore.
The captive farmers rubbed feeling back into their wrists and ankles. They glanced at each other, eyes haunted with unease. Giancarlo pulled his blade from the scabbard, advancing toward one of the men. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and gazed at the superiore, incomprehension frozen on his face. Giancarlo muttered something to the man, handed over the weapon and withdrew with an expectant look.
Lucien swore under his breath. Ten tests, beginning at age eight, continuing each year until eighteen. Failure at any point could mean expulsion from House Fontein. Only Lucien’s title had prevented his ejection before now.
Refusing this final test would mean a mark against him for all time, as both student and Orfano. He really didn’t want that particular reputation dragging at his heels. Giancarlo would damn him with a loss of status and a significant dwindling of prospects.
The farmer advanced, the tip of the sword shaking, weaving in the air before him. Not any sword but Giancarlo’s own blade. The superiore’s slight did not go unnoticed.
‘What did he do?’ said Lucien, ignoring his opponent. Giancarlo frowned.
‘That is not important. Only the fight is important.’
‘What was the crime?’
Giancarlo sneered and said nothing.
With his opponent on his right side Lucien crossed his left foot behind, turning and drawing his sword, striking in one fluid motion. There was no need to look directly at the target. His peripheral vision was more than adequate for such a blow. The man ducked under the sword’s reach, then backed away breathing heavily, visibly shocked with the speed of the attack. Lucien followed up, feinting high. His opponent’s eyes went wide with fear, throwing an awkward parry in front of his face, lurching back from the waist. Lucien winced as his own ceramic blade hit the steel of Giancarlo’s sword, the superiore had stacked the odds steeply. The ceramic stayed true and Lucien realised his opponent had forgotten his feet. Lucien’s next strike came low at the exposed front leg, then pulled his blow at the last moment to avoid contact with the kneecap. The farmer attempted a clumsy counter, and Lucien ducked beneath it, then withdrew three steps.
‘I could have immobilised him. The fight is mine. There’s no need for this charade to continue.’ Lucien struck Giancarlo with a wintry look. ‘Release him.’
The superiore scowled back but said nothing.
The farmer sneaked forward while Lucien was distracted with Giancarlo. The blade clattered from Lucien’s hastily prepared parry and bounced up, opening a small cut on his shoulder. Lucien snarled and swore. Stepping back he let forth an angry bark and unleashed an overhead blow, a hammer strike, knocking his opponent’s blade downwards. Lucien knew first hand how demoralising this manoeuvre was. Golia was all too fond of exactly that style of combat. He remembered numb fingers and an arm too sluggish to respond. Lucien had not wanted to hurt the man, but was struggling to contain his pique.
Too bad.
Lucien struck again, made contact with the farmer’s right arm. He spun back on himself, lashing out again to connect with the farmer’s left arm. Lucien feinted low, striking high with the bone-coloured blade before the man could mount a defence. There was a wet smacking sound and the farmer crumpled to his knees. A choked sob reverberated through the training room. Lucien stood over his opponent breathing lightly. No blood had spattered the tiles. The farmer checked himself in shock and wonder. Lucien had used the flat of his blade to batter his opponent into submission. He was bruised, certainly, but unbloodied.
‘Finish him,’ grunted Giancarlo.
Lucien resheathed his sword with a flourish, then folded his arms.
‘Finish him yourself,’ he replied.
The superiore was behind the farmer before he’d regained his feet. Lucien stared at him, unable to believe what was happening. A knife appeared like a conjuration in Giancarlo’s hand, a twist, a jerk, and then the farmer was face down on the floor, clutching at his throat. Deep red fluid grew in a pool around him. Lucien stared aghast, barely able to breathe. The farmer made a last pitiful wet cry and expired. Lucien stared up to the balcony, where Ruggeri was carefully inspecting his fingernails. D’arzenta looked away with a creased brow.
‘Figlio di putana,’ whispered Lucien, knowing he could be failed for insulting the maestro superiore di spada.
The Allatamento novice ran over and dragged the corpse to the side of the room, struggling with the weight. Lucien scowled at the lack of dignity, then concentrated on making his hands stop shaking. The novice mopped up the blood and none could ignore the taint of voided bowels on the air. The clatter and clang of the mop and bucket was a crude and unpleasant din in the silence following the farmer’s death. Finally the chamber was ready for the second test.
‘Knife fight,’ was all Giancarlo said. The novice scuttled forward, equipping the second man with a short blade, then withdrew. Even across the room Lucien could tell it was a well balanced weapon, the hilt wrapped in deerskin. Lucien laid his sword on the dais with reverence. He looked up to find Giancarlo gazing down intently. Neither of them spoke.
It was unusual but not unheard of for students to be tested on
the knife. It wasn’t regarded as a noble weapon but a crude tool for thugs and petty thieves, the domain of desperate women and assassins. If Giancarlo had wished to insinuate something through his choice of trials then he was making his message admirably clear.
The man circled Lucien and regarded him with cool grey eyes. He was weatherbeaten, olive-skinned with a large aquiline nose. His right eye bore the purple-yellow of severe bruising. The knifeman’s left hand extended forward, fingers spread wide, the knife held up next to his face in his right hand, ready to be thrust into unprotected flesh. His knees were bent slightly, weight over the balls of his feet. Lucien hadn’t conceived there might be dangerous criminals in the lands surrounding Demesne. He quickly revised this opinion.
The punch from the left hand caught him off balance. Clattering into his jaw and knocking him to one side. There was a twinge of panic as he realised how quick his opponent was. Lucien purged the feeling, holding a picture of Virmyre’s most admired sharks in his mind. Deadly, implacable, attacking without reserve or hesitation.
Lucien slashed across the man’s torso, making him leap back, then directed a backhanded blow with the hilt of the weapon, cracking it across his opponent’s nose. Blood spilled in a torrent; the criminal stumbled and swore. Lucien attempted to kick his feet out from under him, instead walking into a wild swipe that opened the right breast of his jacket. The flesh beneath remained whole. The man grinned, his teeth a foul shade of yellow. He launched in with a series of staccato jabs, using the point of the blade to drive Lucien back across the chamber. On and on, his attacker pressed forward, not pausing for a second, each thrust faster and more ferocious than the last. He punctuated the knife thrusts with strikes from his left hand. Lucien batted the blade aside with his knife held in a reverse grip, watching the knifeman’s left hand warily. Much more of this and he’d be up against the wall.
A split second, a realisation. The man had overextended himself. Lucien bent his knees, punching with every ounce of force in his body. Using the blunt handle of the knife he mauled the man’s ruined nose. The criminal howled in pain, staggering back, blinking away tears. The farmer, if indeed he had ever been a farmer, slipped on the spattering of blood from his own nose. He hit the ground with a muffled yelp, his right hand concealed by the weight of his body. He attempted to stand, then exhaled noisily, an awful shiver running through the length of his body.
The training room pitched into silence.
‘Get up!’ roared Giancarlo, who cuffed the novice soundly across the back of the head. The novice ran forward, in turn giving the criminal a generous boot to the ribs. The man didn’t flinch, a deadweight. The novice looked to the superiore with an edge of rising panic on his face. Giancarlo approached and rolled the body over. The man had fallen on his own blade, betrayed underfoot by his own slippery blood.
‘This at least you have managed to get right, bastard boy,’ said Giancarlo eyeing Lucien. ‘Let’s see if you’ve really got the nerve to wear the sashes of House Fontein.’
Lucien stepped forward to the dais to retrieve his cherished blade. Giancarlo calmly laid one boot down on the scabbard and folded his arms. A cruel smile twisted on his lips.
‘You’ll not need this. The last fight is hand-to-hand.’
‘What?’ said Lucien, outraged. No testing had ever been conducted in such a way. ‘I have to kill a man with my bare hands?’
‘If you think you can manage it,’ sneered the superiore. He knelt down and collected Lucien’s blade, drawing it slowly. ‘After all, there will be times when you don’t have a sword to rely upon.’ Lucien stared open-mouthed in horror. Giancarlo hefted the weapon above his head, then brought the bone-coloured blade crashing down onto the granite floor. The blade flew apart, shattered into uncountable pieces.
Lucien felt the fury grow behind his eyes, at the back of his neck, coiling in the muscles of his torso like reptiles. His fingers curled into claws and then he was lunging forward.
D’arzenta shouted something from the balcony, but the sound came from a great distance, drowned out by Lucien’s rage. The smirk on Giancarlo’s face gave way to uncertainty. Lucien grasped him by the jacket, mashing his forehead into the nose of the superiore. Giancarlo collapsed with a muffled thump, blood streaming down his chin.
For a few seconds no one in the chamber moved. D’arzenta and Ruggeri stood leaning over the balcony, faces frozen with shock. The Allatamento boy cowered, keen to be away from the furious Orfano. Franco sidled to the wall, flattening himself against it, perhaps hoping he would be forgotten. Lucien stood at the edge of the dais, the remnants of his blade scattered all around like bone fragments. His hands were shaking but his anger had fled.
Giancarlo dabbed at his face with blunt fingertips, regarding the blood on them. He looked at the bright fluid for a few seconds and laughed.
‘Striking the superiore. This is . . . unforeseen.’ He stood up and Lucien backed away from the dais, hand straying to his knife.
‘Not only am I failing you, but I’m petitioning Duke and Duchess Fontein to strip you of your colours.’ Giancarlo’s eyes glittered coldly. ‘You’ll be forced to change your house name.’
Lucien tried to swallow, struggled to breathe. He’d delivered to Giancarlo everything the superiore could have hoped for short of dying. Everything Lucien had worked for, all he’d dare dream of, swept away in one moment’s insanity.
‘In fact, I’m taking this further,’ growled Giancarlo. ‘I’ll petition all of the houses for your immediate expulsion.’
Lucien staggered back a step as if he’d been struck. He totalled up the votes. Against him, Duke and Duchess Fontein, Lady Prospero and the capo de custodia. Golia most certainly. In his favour, Lady Stephania, if she was allowed to vote. Dino perhaps. Unknown: Lord and Lady Contadino, the Majordomo, the directors of House Erudito. Would Anea stand by him or simply abstain? Worse still no student had ever struck a maestro in all of Demesne’s history, much less a superiore.
‘Why don’t I save you the bother and just leave,’ he whispered.
‘Oh no, I’m going to enjoy this.’ Giancarlo grinned through blood-rimmed teeth. ‘I’ll see to it your name goes down in Demesne’s history books as the most wretched Orfano that ever existed.’
Lucien turned and walked out of the chamber, the sound of his boot heels too loud. He struggled with the door, pushed through into the antechamber, then away into the dank corridor beyond. All that followed him was silence.
4
Festo’s Arrival
HOUSE CONTADINO KITCHENS
– Ottobre 307
Lucien regarded himself in the looking glass, adopting a stern demeanour. Certainly he could benefit from some additional muscle. A lean-limbed slip of a boy looked back from the oak-framed mirror. He hoped he’d be bigger next year, after he turned ten. Some boys remained small until they turned sixteen or seventeen, then sprouted suddenly, surprising everyone. These thoughts weighed on him with increasing frequency. He shivered in the cool morning air then flicked his fringe back from his face. His black hair had grown long in the year since Rafaela had taken him to the Contadino Estate. Since that awful day at the schoolhouse.
Why doesn’t your friend Luc have any ears?
He recalled the words all too often.
He dressed himself in his practice clothes before belting his blade and checking himself in the mirror once more, keen that his disfigurement remained hidden. He waited for Rafaela to appear on her morning round. The long-case clock in the hallway chimed eight, audible through the stout oak door of his sitting room.
Still no Ella.
He didn’t want for a nanny but no one had brought breakfast. And there was the fact he’d not spoken to anyone since dinner the previous night. Sharing the top table with Lord and Lady Contadino should have been a pleasure, but instead proved awkward. The nobles had a duty of care to him, though he was not their son and there was sparse affection. All interaction was bound up in formality and reserved in the ext
reme, conversations stunted on the rare occasions they flourished. The Contadini had their own children to dote on, and so Lucien would sit at the end of the table, slipping away as soon as etiquette allowed.
Still no Ella.
He fussed at his sword belt, checked himself in the mirror one last time, then set off on the long walk to D’arzenta’s practice chamber. Disappointment dogged his steps, a rumbling stomach his only companion. The Majordomo had also failed to make his customary appearance, but this fact was largely unheeded by the armed boy stalking the corridors of the castle.
Tempo. Velocità. Misura.
Finally he gave in to pique, swearing at the absent adults. Angry at Rafaela for not greeting him, cursing the Contadini for being aloof, sneering at D’arzenta for his weak lungs. Was there no one in this damned edifice that would keep him company? He slunk out of the practice room clutching the hilt of his blade, a sour gaze reflected from the looking glass near the door. He chewed his lip a moment.
It wasn’t until Lucien reached the kitchens that he became aware of the quiet inhabiting House Contadino like an elderly guest. He’d managed to walk off the greater part of his petulance, arriving at his destination in a curious state of mind. Camelia was there, humming to herself contentedly, her only companion a small boy sitting on the kitchen table. He gnawed mindlessly on a crust of bread and butter. The kitchen was a cavern of a room, packed full of blackened pots and pans of every dimension. Barrels and bins of produce littered the sides of the chamber. A selection of knives hung from hooks at the far end, glittering coldly in the autumnal light. It was tradition he be ushered out upon arrival, the porters griping there was little enough room without an Orfano underfoot. He’d not seen the kitchens so empty before. The room so often filled with industry did not suit being abandoned.