The boy took his time handing his practice sword to one of the others, treating it with the respect of a real weapon and not the toy it was. Finally, he said, "My name is Yeong Mao."
"You were lucky, Yeong Mao," Yi growled. "Don't expect the enemy to trip over your lost shoe in battle. You must train, and train hard, if you want to remain in a fighting unit and not be sent to do guard duty like the others."
Mao's eyes darkened. "It was luck and skill that beat you. Or are you ashamed to admit defeat?"
He didn't seem to care that he was unarmed, or smaller than Yi. Mao took up a fighting stance once more, his hand taking the place of his blade.
This was madness. Yi didn't want some hot-headed youngster beside him in battle. He reached for one of the practice swords, determined to best this boy in the second bout. His honour was at stake.
"Do your worst," Yi spat.
This time, Mao attacked, blurring into motion so fast Yi barely saw him until Yi lay flat on his back again, and the boy bent over him.
"I'm going to kill you," Yi wheezed, fighting to drag air into his lungs as he clambered painfully to his feet.
"I'd wager this one will be first over the walls when we attack," General Li said, clapping his hands as he strode onto the practice ground. "Well done, boy. What's your name?"
"Yeong Mao," Mao repeated.
"Yeong Fu's son?" the General mused.
Mao nodded.
"You can share a tent with Yi here. Maybe even teach him a thing or two. Looks like he's getting rusty in his old age." General Li grinned.
Old age? Li was more than twice his age, Yi fumed. As for sharing a tent with the boy… He waited until the General moved out of earshot before he muttered, "One night. You can sleep in my tent for one night, but I want a rematch in the morning. No tricks this time."
Mao bowed his head, not bothering to hide his own grin. "Gladly, Gong Ji. Any time you wish to lie in the dirt again, I will help you."
"My name is Jun Yi," Yi bit out through clenched teeth. "Get it right, boy."
"My name is Mao, not boy," Mao corrected. His eyes flashed with an anger that equalled Yi's own. "And you are Gong Ji. A puffed-up rooster who is not as good in a fight as he thinks."
Yi lifted his fist to clout the boy, only to see his arm come up in an automatic block. Mao might be small, but he had some combat training, at least. "Tomorrow, we will test the truth of that," Yi promised. "And when I am done with you, you will be the chicken, not me, running away in fear."
Mao snorted. "We shall see."
Eleven
As Mai lay on her pallet, listening to Yi's breathing on the other side of the tent, her blood buzzed like it contained a swarm of bees. She couldn't recall ever being this angry at anyone before.
For what had felt like a perfect moment that stretched for eternity, she had stood in the ring opposite Yi in her first fight against a real opponent. And her performance had been flawless. Not even her father could have found fault with her today. The world had stood still while only she and Yi moved in it, and she had moved faster than he did every time. A deadly dance indeed.
How dare that puffed-up rooster claim her victory was because of some dishonourable trick?
For the first time in her life, she'd tasted triumph, and a moment later he'd trodden it into the dust by suggesting she'd won because of a lucky accident.
Unlucky, more like, that when she'd hooked her leg around his to trip him, his huge, lumbering foot had dislodged her shoe. Had she fought barefoot, the result would have been the same. Perhaps she should insist that they both fight barefoot on the morrow. Or if she went shoeless, he went shirtless, for the truth was that seeing his muscles so clearly had allowed her to almost read his mind, for the muscles of his chest gave away his next move before he made it. It had been easy to counter him, with so much warning.
She half expected Yi to attack her while she lay in bed, for a man so quick to assume dishonourable behaviour in others must be less than honourable himself. That was why she gripped the hilt of her dagger, ready to use it if the need arose, but his breathing grew even, as though he slept.
She listened a while longer, until she was satisfied that the man really was asleep, before she set her shoes alongside her bed, where they would trip him up if he approached her. Her dagger went under her pillow, within easy reach should she need it during the night. Then she rolled herself up in her blanket and sank into sleep.
Twelve
The eighth time Yi picked himself up off the ground where Mao had dumped him, he resolved it would be the last. "You win," he panted, bowing to the boy.
Mao gave a curt nod. "Just like yesterday." His eyes glittered with what Yi fancied was a warning.
"Just like yesterday," Yi agreed. He knew when he was beaten, though it had been a long time since anyone had been able to do so. He'd been smaller than Mao, and probably younger, too. He had long since surpassed his training masters. Perhaps Mao's master would be willing to train him, too. "Who taught you to fight like that?"
"My father, of course," Mao said, slipping his shoes back on his feet. The movement was oddly graceful, stirring something inside Yi that he didn't understand.
A memory, he told himself. For there was nothing about a boy putting on his shoes that could inspire any kind of feeling in him.
"And your father is Yeong Fu?" Yi asked, hoping he'd gotten the name right .It sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't place the man. That was strange in itself, for Yi prided himself on knowing every man at court who had some skill with a blade. A man who fought as well as Mao should be remembered. "Have I seen him at court?"
Mao shook his head. "My father is rarely at court. The last time the Emperor summoned him, I was but a small child. Too small and weak to even lift a wooden practice sword, though my father insisted otherwise."
A country noble, then, Yi guessed. Which made it all the stranger that he should know the man's name. "Did he train troops?"
Mao straightened with pride. "He trained me, just as he did all the other boys in his army, he said. He was a well-respected general who won many battles."
Not someone Yi had fought under, though. "Your father must be very old, then, if he has retired from the commanding troops."
Mao opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again, as if to keep a secret from escaping. Interesting. Finally, he said, "That is why he sent me to war in his stead." He kept his eyes firmly on the ground.
A lie, Yi assumed, or only a partial truth. No matter. General Li had them sharing a tent. Mao could hardly avoid him. Whatever secrets he kept would leak out eventually, and Yi intended to be there when they did.
"How many battles have you fought in?" Yi asked.
Mao wet his lips. "None," he admitted. "How many have you?"
"Too many to count," Yi replied easily. It was true. He didn't remember any more. He had learned that the only battles that mattered were the ones you fought at the present moment, and the next one. "If I'd fought against someone like you, though, I wouldn't have survived."
Mao's mouth dropped open. "But…trained soldiers at war…fighting is what they are trained for. Not just a little practice in the yard every morning, like me."
"There is more to army life than fighting. They spend more time digging, doing camp chores and drilling than actually fighting," Yi said. "They train daily, but as a unit. A common soldier is not a warrior, or a fine swordsman. He is but one part of a company of men, who must all do the same thing at the same time when they are ordered to do so. They move as one, not as men."
Mao nodded thoughtfully. "A well-trained army is as essential to victory as a good general, and capable officers. So my father says."
When the siege was over, Yi resolved to find Mao's father and make the man train him. If he could turn this small boy into a formidable fighter, surely he would welcome the Prince of Swords as his pupil. "But so is keeping the army well-fed. Come, I will show you the officers' mess, where you will find the worst meal
you ever ate."
Mao's eyes widened. "Are we short on provisions? That does not bode well for victory."
Yi laughed. "Oh, we have provisions aplenty. You arrived at the head of a sizeable baggage train. The problem is the cooks are all army men. Just one of the palace cooks could turn every meal into a dream for your senses, but our cooks? The days when you can eat what they produce, it is a good day." It was on the tip of his tongue to say Heng, his manservant, was on good terms with the General's cook, so he rarely needed to visit the officers' mess, but Yi resisted. Let Mao learn what it really meant to serve in the army, instead of training at home with his father. The boy could surely fight, but something told Yi that he was too soft for army life. He still might turn and run in battle, like all the other noble boys he'd fought yesterday. Yi would take the city with seasoned fighting men, not boys. And young Mao was not a man yet. Though he might become one before Li ended the siege, at the snail's pace he worked at.
No matter. That would give him more time to win Mao over, so that his father would agree to train him.
Thirteen
Perhaps Yi was not so bad after all, Mai mused as she forced down another mouthful of bland food. She couldn't keep the smile off her face after what she felt was a fantastic training session that morning. Yi had fought hard, but she had fought harder, and victory was sweet once more. Especially when the man acknowledged it this time.
She had made some mistakes, she admitted, but Yi had not been quick enough to capitalise on them. On the morrow, she would improve.
In the meantime, she listened to Yi's tales of battles he had fought in. More than her father had, to hear the man talk. She had heard every story her father could tell more times than she could count, but Yi's were all new. Some were even fought here, on this very plain, on the rare occasions General Li had tempted the city's troops out to do battle. Those were fewer now the walls were up, but Yi admitted the city's army still ventured out to test Li's defences. It had been weeks since their last sortie – perhaps Mao would be lucky enough to join the next battle, Yi said.
It took Mai a moment to remember that the name was hers, but it was close enough to her own that she hoped she would soon grow used to it.
"We'll have plenty of poets to immortalise it, when you do get to fight," he said, laughing.
Poets? "What do you mean?"
He jerked his chin at the nearest watchtower. "Remember all those boys yesterday I sent to do guard duty?"
She nodded.
"Noble youths from court, most of them. Their fathers want them to serve in the army, but fighting is out of favour in my father's court. He favours poetry, and so do most of them. They might not know one end of a sword from another, but they are familiar with a calligraphy brush. I gave them the best vantage points to see whatever may come, and their best chance of surviving to tell the tale when they return to court."
Mai frowned. "So you deny them the honour of dying in the Emperor's service, when that is why they are here?"
"There is honour in dying well in battle, but there is none when you die screaming, running from the battlefield like a pig fleeing slaughter. Honour is not earned through throwing away your life." He pointed at the common soldiers' camp below them. "If they fall in battle, it will be hard fought. They have entered the Emperor's service and trained every day for battle. But a boy who knows nothing of fighting, who has not trained a day in his life? They will be slaughtered, with no honour on either side."
Finally, Mai understood. Perhaps her desire to honour her ancestors by dying in battle would be a bad idea. She liked living, and if there was another way… "Why didn't you train them? The great Sunxi trained concubines to fight. Surely boys of the right age…"
Yi shook his head. "Not all men are born to fight, just as not all women are born to serve. Some choose a different path, or destiny chooses it for them." He laughed. "For those boys, I chose their path. One which has a future for them, and won't get me killed in battle as they run in fear at the first sight of blood. You'd better not turn out to be like them, Mao, or I'll find you a watchtower, too."
Mai laughed. "You tell tales of all the battles you have fought, but after fighting against you, I wonder that you survived at all. You're more likely to get yourself killed than anything I could do. Some fighter you are, Rooster."
It was Yi's turn to frown. "Will you stop calling me that?"
She leaned forward. "I shall stop calling you that when you are no longer a rooster. Beat me in a fight, and I will address you as your Highness, Prince of Swords, the best hero and fighter there ever was. Until then…I think I shall keep pulling your pretty tail feathers."
"Then another rematch on the morrow," Yi swore.
Mai inclined her head. "I look forward to it."
Fourteen
Weeks passed, every day the same as the last. Mai and Yi would begin the day with a new bout, and she would proceed to drop him on his back or his front or occasionally even his head until he cried enough for one day and sulkily slunk off to find breakfast. Sometimes, they would join the regular army in their training exercises, but at others, the General sent them on errands to the other camps.
The garrison inside Dean led sorties out to attack some of the camps at night, stealing their supplies and burning what they could, before sneaking back into the city. She'd seen the smoking aftermath of these raids, and occasionally witnessed a battalion marching out to help the camp while they were under attack, but no battle seemed to be in the General's plans. Yi believed the General's strategy was to wait here until the city starved, which would take a very long time with the city stealing their supplies to supplement their own. This kind of war seemed a very tedious business. So much for a campaign being as swift as the wind. Sure, the General might stand as firm as a mountain, but he moved more like a snail than a thunderbolt, and the only plundering going on was by the citizens of Dean, who understood the qualities of fire all too well, for they used it to great effect.
Many times, Mai found herself shaking her head. The commander of Dean evidently knew the art of war intimately, but the General did not. She began to wonder if her father was right, and whether Dean was the side that should win. After all, the better commander with the better army and the better terrain and all the supplies they needed would surely be victorious. She didn't dare mention that to Yi, though. Bad enough that her father might be a traitor, without letting the Emperor's son know she might be one, too.
She still slept with a knife under her pillow, but she now knew Yi well enough to be sure she'd never use it. For all his pride, he was an honourable man. And a protector of poets. If he wanted to kill her, he would do so in a fair fight, not in the darkness while she slept.
The food alternated between bland, awful and burned, but it was mostly edible, so she bit back her complaints until she realised no one else was. Men whined more than Jing when they didn't like their food, she found.
She had to admit she didn't mind army life. Her mother had grown up with it, first with her father, and then with her husband, so it made sense that Mai would take to it as naturally as a duck to water.
Oh, duck. Mai's mouth watered at the thought of eating one that had been cooked properly, instead of the tough old bird the cooks had produced yesterday.
Gradually, she became known around the camp. Most of the men were too young to have served under her father, but they had grown up hearing the stories about him. One man even asked her if she'd do the honour of crossing swords with him in the training ring, if only so that he could tell his children he had fought with Yeong Fu's son.
Mai could not refuse him, so she told him to meet her after the next day's bout with Yi.
Somehow, word spread, so that when she and Yi arrived for yet another rematch, there must have been more than fifty men milling around, forming a crowd around the ring so that she could not even see the sand as she approached.
"What's this?" Yi asked irritably.
Several men turned, and al
l of them bowed at the sight of the prince. Yi's name was on everyone's lips, along with Mai's father's.
The man she'd met only yesterday stepped forward. "Yeong Mao. Your Highness." He bowed. "When I told the others, they asked to come and watch. Some asked whether they, too, might have the honour of crossing swords with one or even both of you."
"Both?" The idea intrigued Mai. She had never fought at someone's side before.
Yi came to her rescue. "In my grandfather's day, he held tournaments where there was an event called a melee. There are two teams of men, and only one can emerge victorious. They fight together, like companies of opposing armies. Toward the end of the event, when many are injured, a winning team of two or three men have fought back to back until there is no one else left standing." He seemed to be struggling with something, but finally he added, "I cannot imagine a better fighter than yourself to have at my back in a melee. What do you say we postpone our rematch?"
Mai agreed. She listened while Yi laid down the rules, before she found her back pressed up against the warm wall of muscle that was Yi. She'd never been this close to a man before, and she rather liked it. Right up until she realised she had two soldiers rushing toward her, armed with wooden practice swords and more enthusiasm than anyone should have this early in the morning.
The fight. Of course. That's where her mind should be, she scolded herself. Not on the handsome man at her back whose behind kept rubbing against hers.
The sun was well up by the time Yi breathlessly called a halt to the mock battle. Bruised but exhilarated, Mai couldn't keep the smile off her face.
Yi used the hem of his robe to wipe the sweat from his forehead. "What did you think of that, boy? It's as close to battle as you'll get short of the real thing. Do you think you're man enough for more?"
Mai laughed in delight. "I want to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, too."
Dance: Cinderella Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale series Book 3) Page 4