‘I believe in the Helm,’ Penn said fervently. ‘I really do. Nothing else will be good enough.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I believe in justice. I want to become the best warrior I possibly can be, so that I can make sure justice is served.’
‘That’s a noble aim,’ Caraway said. ‘But justice isn’t a solitary act. We make it together.’ He crossed the floor to pick up Penn’s discarded sword, and nodded at the depleted top bulb of the timer. ‘Go on, now. The others are waiting.’
After the intensity that was Penn, Caraway was relieved to find the next few trainees straightforward. He got through a good handful of them before taking a longer break to rest and catch up on his notes. In the past he would have done that with Ayla, but not today. She stayed up in her place, and he stayed down in his.
He’d tested most of the trainees on their bladework, with some unarmed combat where appropriate, but it occurred to him that maybe in the future he’d be testing them on their accuracy with a pistol. Now that was a strange thought. It was possible that in a few years’ time, everything he was teaching and testing now – everything he knew – would be obsolete.
Not so, he told himself. There’s far more to being a Helmsman than knowing one end of a sword from the other. All the same, it was a depressing thought.
As his break neared its end, he checked the list. Ree was next, and he had every confidence in her ability to – wait. Slowly he lifted his head to look up at the shadowed corner where Ayla sat. He wasn’t at all sure he’d raised the subject of female Helmsmen with her. And given that she was the one they’d be protecting, she’d probably want to have a say in it.
He climbed partway up the steps, and Ayla came down to meet him. Since their argument, she’d closed herself off; her expression gave nothing away. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I just thought you should know, the next one’s a girl,’ Caraway said. ‘And another one later, too. We’ve had two female recruits this year.’
Ayla’s eyebrows lifted, but apart from that faint indication of surprise she remained impassive. ‘You’re considering letting women into the Helm?’
‘There doesn’t seem a good reason not to,’ he said tentatively. ‘Is that all right?’
‘All right? Of course it’s all right. It’s your Helm.’
Still unable to tell how she really felt, he scanned her face in silence until her cold expression melted into amused exasperation.
‘I mean it, Tomas. Why should I mind? If anything, I’d welcome a few more women about the place. It gets a little lonely, sometimes, being surrounded by men all the time.’
She’d been completely lacking in female companionship after her mother died, Caraway realised. She’d never had a female friend. Or any friend, for that matter, apart from Myrren. For the first time, it occurred to him to pity her – and with that, his feelings for her changed. Not for the worse. Never that. But they splintered and reformed, like the patterns of a kaleidoscope, into something more complex and more real.
‘I love you, you know,’ he said softly, reaching across the gap between them to touch her cheek. Her fingers came up to cover his, but a small frown drew her brows together.
‘Tomas, I –’
The door clanged on its hinges once more, startling them apart. Caraway turned to find Ree in the arena below, staring up at them. A slow blush spread up her cheeks, and she took a step backwards as if she wanted to retreat.
‘Hello, Ree,’ Caraway said cheerfully. ‘You’ll be pleased to learn I haven’t brought a bow and arrows with me today.’
Ree mumbled something, but her gaze kept flicking between him and Ayla. He glanced at Ayla, afraid she’d think it impertinent, but her expression was soft.
‘Just pretend I’m not here,’ she told Ree gently, before returning to her hiding place. Caraway descended to the duelling floor and handed Ree one of the swords.
He was expecting an easy test, but to his dismay, Ree wasn’t operating at anything like the level he knew she was capable of. The first time she made a silly mistake, he adjusted for it and went on as if nothing had happened. Just finding her feet, he told himself, but then it happened again. And again. After a while, he gave up on duelling altogether and got her to demonstrate some of the basic forms – the kind of test he’d give a complete novice after a month or two of using a sword. She knew them inside out. She’d demonstrated that the very first time he’d met her. And yet even on that simple test, she stumbled and got mixed up.
‘All right, Ree,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll leave it there.’
She looked up at him with wide greenish eyes. She knew she’d done badly – he could see it in the set of her jaw and the lack of colour in her cheeks. He suspected she wanted to cry, but she held herself steady. That was something, at least.
‘Judging you only on today’s performance, you’d have been lucky to get through the first week,’ he told her sternly. ‘I’m going to assume this was nerves on your part, but don’t let it happen again.’
‘No, sir. I’m sorry. I –’ She hesitated, biting her lip, then said again, ‘I’m sorry.’
She threw a quick glance up at Ayla’s concealed seat, then another at him, before giving a wobbly salute and heading for the door. Caraway stared after her until Ayla emerged once more from the shadows and spoke softly.
‘Is she usually that nervous?’
‘No. She’s one of the most competent new recruits we have.’ He turned to look up at Ayla. ‘Maybe female Helmsmen aren’t such a good idea.’
‘That’s not fair,’ Ayla said. ‘I put her off. She’d have been fine if it had just been you.’
‘She knows better than to be distracted by anything,’ Caraway said. ‘And if she’s distracted by you, in particular, I don’t see how she can do the job.’
‘It wasn’t me. It was us. We caught her by surprise, but I doubt it will happen again.’ Smiling ruefully at his bemused expression, Ayla shook her head. ‘Never mind. Just give her a chance. Now, I’d better hide again before I disconcert any more of your students.’
Caraway didn’t have a clue what she was getting at, but that was fine. The important thing was that they were talking to each other properly again. He watched her retreat to the top of the stands, then turned to the door in time to see the next recruit come in.
The rest of the testing passed without incident. The only person who managed to surprise him was Saydi. She still wasn’t perfect, but she’d improved a lot over the course of training. Every one of the mistakes he’d picked her up on previously had lessened, if not vanished entirely. She’d obviously been practising hard, and she was a fast learner – weren’t those the qualities he wanted in a Helmsman? Not just technical proficiency, but dedication and adaptability. And since he’d more or less told Ree she had a place in the advanced programme, despite her poor showing earlier, why not two of them? Ayla had as good as said she’d like it.
As for the rest, they turned out to be quite predictable. Farleigh was showy but prone to over-reaching himself, as he had been throughout training; his estimation of his own abilities was always a little beyond reality. Timo wasn’t decisive enough, but would have the makings of a solid warrior once the forms became instinctive enough that he no longer had to think about them. And so it went.
Once the last of them had left the hall, Caraway dropped his weapon on the floor and rolled his shoulders. It was harder than it looked, adjusting his style to challenge each trainee at the appropriate level. Letting mistakes pass, instead of following his natural instinct to take advantage of the smallest weakness. Particularly when he was using a damn wooden sword that left his palms covered in blisters.
‘Are you all right?’ Ayla asked, descending the stands to join him.
‘Tired.’ He hesitated, sensing the lingering remnants of coldness between them. But he’d had enough of fighting – of all kinds – for one day, so he gave her a rueful smile. ‘I’m sorry, Ayla.’
She put her a
rms around him despite his sweaty and dishevelled state, resting her cheek against his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry too.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘Can I ask you about a few of them?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then … Penn?’
‘I don’t think he wants to kill me,’ Ayla said. ‘But apparently he wouldn’t mind killing you.’ She pulled back so she could look up into his face. ‘What did you do to make him so angry?’
Caraway shook his head. ‘He’s always been like that. Makes it very hard to tell if it’s anything more than just his normal, everyday dislike of humanity. Farleigh?’
‘I get the impression that Farleigh is too satisfied with the world and his place in it to commit so disruptive an act as murder.’
Caraway laughed. ‘That’s probably a fair assessment.’
‘Ree is very sweet,’ Ayla added, and he laughed again.
‘She wouldn’t thank you for that characterisation.’
Ayla gave him a surprisingly sharp glance. ‘I daresay.’ But she said no more on the subject, remarking after a moment, ‘Saydi’s an interesting one, isn’t she? I must admit, I didn’t expect her to do as well as she did.’
‘Nor did I,’ Caraway admitted. ‘She’s improved far beyond anything I could have imagined.’
‘So that’s it, then,’ Ayla said. ‘Women in the Helm.’ Her smile held an edge of malice. ‘My father would have had an apoplexy.’
‘They still have to get through full training. A year is a long time.’
‘But the door is open, now. That’s what matters.’ She leaned into him once more. ‘Thank you, Tomas.’
‘For what?’
‘Breaking tradition with me.’
He grinned. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
TWENTY-TWO
The day after testing, Penn and Saydi got up early and went down to the yard outside the training hall. Weaponmaster Bryan had promised to post the list of those accepted for Helm training at the third bell, which was still some time away, but the two of them had agreed it would be impossible to focus on anything else that morning. So they sat in the yard, played skipping-stones, and waited.
After a while, the door opened and they both startled to their feet, but it was only Miles. He walked off in the direction of the Gate of Steel, not the Gate of Ice, so he clearly wasn’t going up to the tower today. Penn was rather confused by Miles. He was an academic, not a warrior, yet every week he visited Darkhaven. Some kind of special research, was the rumour amongst the trainees. A secret project with Ayla Nightshade herself. But surely, if Darkhaven wanted to develop a new weapon, they’d be better off consulting a weaponmaster?
‘What does he do up there every week?’ he muttered, more to himself than to Saydi.
‘Let’s ask him!’ Before he could stop her, Saydi rushed off in the alchemist’s direction. Penn followed more slowly. He liked Saydi a lot more than he had – obviously – but he still didn’t understand her propensity to chatter. It was all he could do to muster the effort to string two sentences together for most people’s benefit.
By the time he arrived beside her, she was already asking Miles a million questions about his research. The alchemist answered them guardedly – anyone could see, Penn thought, that whatever he was doing in Darkhaven was confidential – but that didn’t put Saydi off. And when she discovered that it involved Ayla Changing, there was no stopping her.
‘You’ve seen Lady Ayla’s other form up close?’ she repeated. ‘I saw her fly over the city once when we were training – earned a nasty bruise for the distraction, too – but that’s all. Is she very beautiful?’
‘The most beautiful thing I have ever seen,’ Miles said. Apparently this was one topic he didn’t mind talking about. ‘In creature form she is a horse made of burnished gold, though larger than any other horse in existence. Her wings are like two immense sheets of flickering flame. When she opens them wide, the whole world is filled with sunlight.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Strange, that a creature of ice and ebonwood should have such a fiery exterior; but she has the Phoenix’s colouring, I suppose.’
‘Then where do you work together?’ Saydi persisted. ‘Surely to have space for her and all your alchemist’s tools, you must need to be in a field or something.’
Miles smiled at her. ‘Darkhaven is built on a far larger scale than most of us are used to. But we use the transformation room, the one just off the central courtyard. It is where Lady Ayla goes to Change anyway, so there is plenty of space.’
‘Penn and I are hoping to visit Darkhaven tomorrow,’ Saydi confided. ‘If we get accepted for Helm training … but let’s not think about that now. Can you tell me what it’s like up there?’
Before Penn knew it, they were off into a long conversation about the tower: how many rooms it had, their size, their furnishings, how many storeys there were and how they were positioned around the central square. As usual when confronted with information for which he couldn’t see an immediate practical use, Penn’s brain switched off. He did his best to concentrate – to distract himself from the forthcoming list of results, if nothing else – but he found it simply impossible to take an interest in something so irrelevant.
This, he thought with bitter amusement, is why I never managed to learn much at school.
Finally the conversation drew to a close, and Miles hurried off towards the Gate of Steel. Probably made him late, the poor bastard. Penn shook his head at Saydi. ‘You talk too much.’
‘I talk exactly the right amount,’ she replied with dignity. ‘He’s a nice man, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’ But Penn disposed of the alchemist with a shrug. The third bell was about to ring, and he had no room in his mind for anything else.
Precisely as the temple bells began to chime, Weaponmaster Bryan emerged from the training hall with a sheet of paper in one hand. He cast Penn and Saydi an amused glance that gave precisely nothing away, before pinning it to the door and disappearing back inside again.
‘Come on!’ Saydi dragged Penn across the yard. Yet now the time had come, he was suddenly reluctant. What if he’d failed? What if that moment in the testing when he’d let his control lapse and his rage come burning through had cost him everything? He closed his eyes, not daring to look … but at Saydi’s intake of breath, he opened them again. He couldn’t help it.
His name was at the top of the list.
‘It’s alphabetical, Avens,’ Saydi said, nudging him with her shoulder. ‘So don’t go getting big-headed.’
Even before he found her name on the paper, the glee in her voice told him that she’d been accepted too. He turned his head, and they grinned at each other. One step closer to taking my revenge. One step closer to upholding my family’s honour.
‘That’s it, then,’ Saydi said. She sounded as jubilant as he felt. ‘Let’s go and celebrate.’
Later, back in Penn’s room, she sat him down on the bed and fixed him with a determined stare.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘You’ve got what you wanted. We both have. So now, you can tell me exactly what you’re planning. How is Helm training going to help you kill Caraway? Because yes, you’ll be around him a lot, but it’s not as though any of us will have a lot of one-on-one time with him. If that’s what you wanted, your best bet would have been to catch him off guard during the testing.’
Penn shook his head. Now that Saydi was forcing him to explain the details, he had a nasty feeling she’d laugh at him.
‘I don’t want to catch him off guard,’ he admitted. ‘If I stab him in the back or ambush him, he won’t know it was me. It won’t be enough. No, I want him to train me. Teach me everything he knows. And then as soon as I’ve learned enough to be sure of beating him, I’ll fight him and I’ll win.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s why I wanted to be accepted for Helm training, and that’s why I’m happy now.’
Saydi didn’t laugh. She frowned at him as though he were a puzzle she needed to solve, and didn’
t reply for some time.
‘It seems a very slow way of getting revenge,’ she said finally. ‘Months of training, for what? The chance to challenge a man to a duel you might not even win?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘if I were you, I wouldn’t be content with hurting Caraway himself. He’s a soldier; he’s used to pain. No – to make him suffer, I’d want to hurt someone close to him.’
‘Who, Lady Ayla?’ Penn asked doubtfully. ‘She’s even harder to get to than Caraway himself. He may be armed, but at least we see him regularly. She stays up in Darkhaven, guarded by the Helm. And anyway …’ He stopped, unable to articulate his deep unease about the idea of committing treason. It wasn’t a prospect that should have mattered to him, given his intentions towards Caraway, but somehow it did all the same. Yet Saydi only laughed.
‘I wasn’t talking about Ayla. Unless you have a pistol stashed away somewhere, you wouldn’t stand a chance. But Ayla has a nephew.’
‘So?’
‘It seems she doesn’t care much for the boy.’ She paused, smiling widely. ‘But our Captain Caraway has taken to him like a father.’
You’re suggesting I hurt a tiny child? Part of him shrank from Saydi at that, at the sheer disregard for common decency that had led her even to think of such a thing.
No scruples, remember? another part replied. You’re never going to be forgiven, no matter what you do, so you might as well do whatever will be most effective.
And whispering in the wake of both came the dark part of him: It could work. You already know his greatest fear is losing them – Ayla, Marlon, the whole life that was unfairly given to him. And at least there’d be no more waiting. A spark of hope leapt in him at the idea, then just as quickly died.
‘If Ayla’s being guarded, even with the strength of her gift to protect her, I hardly think a vulnerable child will be less well defended.’
‘Ah, but security has lessened since Zander’s arrest,’ Saydi pointed out. ‘And that means young Marlon is allowed to walk outside the tower every afternoon with his nurse, just as he did before all those rumours came to the city.’
Goldenfire Page 26