Spirit of the Sword: Pride and Fury (The First Sword Chronicles Book 1)

by Frances Smith

  He also kept one eye on Amy during that day's march, hoping that she might show signs of softening her attitude. She did not. Indeed she barely looked his way all day, and when she caught him glancing at her she pointedly put on her helmet so that he could no longer see her face. What Michael had seen gave him little reassurance: her look was sour, filled with bitter disappointment that came Michael knew not whereof. Yes, he had been chosen to command this stage of the journey and not she, but so unexpected was Gideon's decision that she could hardly have possessed any expectation of the leadership, so why was she acting as though a hope long cherished had been snatched from her? Michael tried to think back over his own conduct, to see if he had in any way offended her. If he had, the offence was beyond him.

  "Sometimes the fault is not with us, and those whose wrath blasts at us do so out of faults that lie within themselves," Tullia whispered in his ear, too softly for Amy to overhear.

  Michael considered this, but could not think what fault Amy might have within herself would make her angry at him. Perhaps he was simply too foolish to see that which had been rendered clear as day before Tullia's eyes.

  "You are very wise, ma'am" Michael said.

  Tullia shrugged. "All vices and virtues, all grandeurs and follies, all private obsessions and personal oddities, every facet of the soul of man is paraded through the court and through the great city that surrounds it. Moreso, I wager, than through a small provincial town. I would not say wisdom, more experience."

  "I would say both, for experience is useless absent the wit to learn from it," Michael said sadly. "You should lead this company, not I."

  "That is impossible," Tullia said. "I am but a servant."

  "Some serve by leading," Michael reminded her.

  "Some yes," Tullia replied. "But not I. I am a mage of the Black, and that is not our way."

  Michael shook her head at her modesty. "Then you are wasted in such a place."

  "Kind of you to say, but it is still my place, and I know it well," Tullia said.

  "I thought I knew my place, but I still ended up here by some strange operation of magic," Michael said.

  "Which goes to show," Tullia said.

  "Show what, ma'am?"

  "That you did not really know your place."

  The fall of night saw Amy still sulking, unfortunately, and she ate her food quickly without comment. Leader though he now was, Michael had refused to give up his responsibility for preparing meals, partly because he would have felt rather useless not doing any work and partly because he was the only one who knew how to cook. Amy cleaned her plate, but did so with a permanent scowl upon her face, and she would not meet his eyes for any reason. When the meal was finished she looked away, staring off into the gathering dark of evening.

  "I plan to take the first watch," Michael said. "Amy will take the second, and Gideon you the third tonight."

  "I'll go first," Amy spoke, the first words she had spoken since Gideon had given Michael the command, and spoke in a brusque, curt tone devoid of warmth. And when she continued her voice acquired a note of bitterness. "With your permission, that is."

  Michael had thought that Amy, having the best sight in the darkness, would be best employed in the darkest watch of the night, but he had no desire to pick a fight with her. "If that is what you wish, our Amy."

  Amy got up. "With your permission, sir?"

  Michael looked away, embarrassed by her venom. "You don't need my permission to do anything, our Amy."

  He did not watch but rather heard her stomp away to take up her post. When he did look, nobody would meet his eyes. Michael was not sure that he wanted them too.

  "Excuse me a moment," Gideon rose, and walked away into the night.

  Michael stared into the fire, and the rest was silence.

  As she sat upon the ground alone, with her hands around her knees and Magnus Alba propped up against her shoulder, Amy knew that she had behaved badly. Her best, her oldest friend and she had rejected him. When they were young he had defended her, watched over her, and she had repaid his kindness with dismissal. She knew that, had the lot fallen on her, Michael would have been nothing but overjoyed on her behalf, so why could she not extend him the same courtesy? What would Felix say, to see her now grown to the person they had hated in their childhood days?

  Nothing kind, I'm sure. In that meek, nervous way of his he would probably be close to rude.

  Amy scowled. None of this was her fault, damn it all. It was Gideon who had spread this discord amongst them. Why had he set her against Michael? Why had he abdicated command? Why had he decided to sow division in their enterprise?

  Why hadn't he chosen her?

  She had meant what she had said, she was more suited for command than Michael was. She had not meant it unkindly, but as the simple truth. She was born to command, bred to command, she had been schooled in its arts by one of the most renowned knights of the ocean realm. She had observed firsthand how to lead expeditions such as this, so what made her a less attractive choice than a man who, until recently, had been in chains?

  "No halfbreed will ever be a knight, not now and not in ten thousand years, so why don't you go back where you came from and stop dirtying the water for the rest of us?"

  "You think to crawl back here after all these years and be my heir? I'll pull Seafire Peak down upon myself before I see it in the hands of you or your half-human whelp."

  I should have known better than to know that running here would change anything, Amy thought.

  "Ameliora." Gideon approached her from behind, coming to stand over her and looking down upon her from on high. "May I join you for a moment?"

  "Why don't you spend time with Michael, I'm sure he'd be honoured," Amy muttered.

  "I'm not entirely certain what a knight is, but I'm sure that juvenile petulance ill becomes one," Gideon said, sitting down.

  "I'm not a knight, I'm a squire," Amy said. "And now I won't ever become a knight."

  "Indeed," Gideon said, in a neutral tone.

  "Since you're here, and show no sign of going away, why didn't you pick me?" Amy said.

  "Because I'm not interested in you," Gideon said.

  Amy rolled her eyes. "Thank you, that makes me feel much better."

  Gideon did not reply, he just looked at her for a while. "Ameliora, I am going to give you a piece of advice: ambition is a poison, it will destroy your soul if you allow it. I urge you not to let things get that far."

  That was too much. "Just who are you to lecture me about ambition? Even I've heard of House Commenae, the oldest and wealthiest of the Empire's great families. When was the last time you had to work for anything? You can't begin to understand how hard I've had to struggle."

  "Indeed I cannot, and I have not the temerity to pretend otherwise," Gideon said. "But that was not what I intended to do: I meant to warn you against the dangers of thwarted ambition, a subject on which I am eminently qualified to discourse.

  "When I was a younger man I had a stock of ambitions as would shock even you, a woman not shy of ambitions of her own. I aimed to revive the office of First Sword, to become the Prince Imperial's most trusted councillor, to be the very power behind the throne, to destroy the Novar Church and restore the faith of Aegea. I aimed to end the struggle of the orders and bring concord to our fair state. I aimed to complete Aegea's dream and bring all the world under the sway of the Empire's banner." Gideon sighed. "Most of all I aimed to shine, to be rendered so glorious that a thousand years after my death I would still be upheld as a paragon of all the virtues. That, I think, is an ambition very familiar to you."

  Amy nodded, waiting to see what his point was.

  "Of all those grand ambitions, I achieved only the first," Gideon said. "And found that a very hollow achievement since nobody would recognise my office. When I pressed the issue once my own brother said to me, 'Aren't you a little old to be playing children's games, pretending to be something you are not?' I was so angry I could have struck
him. In all other aims, every other task that I had set myself, I was a miserable failure, and my ambitions turned inwards and made me bitter. It destroyed my relationship with my brother, with my friends, with those I had thought to make my apprentices. If you allow it, it will destroy you in the same way."

  "Are you saying my ambitions are doomed to be thwarted?" Amy said.

  "No, I'm saying you should be prepared not to get everything you want, lest you become a husk filled with frustrations," Gideon said. "You may win great glory here, and in the wars that will surely follow, but if you do not get all the recognition that you feel you deserve, are you really prepared to let that turn you against those who care about you? Against Michael?"

  "I... you don't understand," Amy snapped. She didn't want to fight with Michael, she didn't want any of the things that he'd described, but Gideon couldn't know how it was for her. "For a naiad, prestige is everything: if you don't have standing with your peers then you're nothing."

  "I think that if you actually spoke to Michael, Jason, Wyrrin and Tullia you would find your standing with them is not low; though it may have been lowered a little by your recent behaviour."

  "And what about you?"

  "I am not your peer."

  "No, you're my captain."

  "I appointed Michael to the command."

  "Exactly, you gave him command, and you can take it away whenever you please," Amy said. "If you're not interested in me at all why are you bothering to talk to me like this?"

  Gideon was silent a moment. "You did not come here to help a friend, did you? Or at least, not completely."

  No, I came because I thought I might get a fairer shake here now. Amy rubbed her forehead between her eyebrows. She had wanted to see Michael again, she was glad to be reunited with him after all these years, but she was ashamed to say that that motive alone would not have enticed her to desert had she been feted and admired at Seafire Peak, and been guaranteed the succession to that ancient seat. "I think you already know the answer to that, though damned if I know how."

  "My eyes miss nothing, not even the truths that are within, save for those that were hidden inside of mine own soul," Gideon said.

  "You never answered my question," Amy said. "Why are you here?"

  "I was a failure at everything in my life: as soldier, spy, brother, son, patriot and loyal servant to the Empire. I do not say that you will fail in all your goals, fail at being everything you wish to be, but you have a long life before you and you will undoubtedly fail at something along the way; I would not like to see you react to that as badly as I did. I do not say change who you are, but be wary of it at least. I was proud; I am proud still. I was arrogant; I am more than a little yet. I was vain; I hope I have at least cured myself of that. I was all those things and it brought me nothing but humiliation, heartache, recrimination and tragedy. In the end it very nearly killed me. It took failure to teach me modesty, exile to teach me humility, and ruination to teach me to be meek. I would like to think that you may reach that point without so much pain.

  "And besides, this rift with Michael hurts him, and I would do what I can to ease his pain."

  Amy chuckled. "You really do care about him don't you? I wasn't sure."

  "Neither was I, at first," Gideon said. "But, yes, he has rather grown upon me."

  "Honestly now, and no glib response, what does he have that I don't?"

  "Selflessness," Gideon said. "Oh, I know that Michael is not without his selfish impulses; just as you are not without your moments of generosity and a certain sense of a patron's obligations to her clients. But what Michael has, that you lack, is the ability to subsume himself to the service of a cause. The cause of his family, and I hope the cause of the Empire. You are, to be blunt, too focussed upon your own personal prestige, seeing service only as a means to glorify yourself. I once believed it was possible to serve both the Empire and mine own ambitions, but I was bitterly mistaken and thus I cannot use you. And, as I cannot use you, you do not interest me."

  "When you put it like that it no longer seems a prize I want," Amy said, feeling herself redden a little in embarrassment. "And you swear, you give your word, that there was no slight intended?"

  "None at all," Gideon said.

  Amy bowed her head, letting her chin rest against her gorget. "Very well, I will talk to Michael and make my apologies. Not now, but when I have had a chance to weigh my words."

  Gideon stood up and nodded. "That will do. I hope you will consider what I have said."

  He began to walk away.

  "Lord Gideon," Amy called to him.

  Gideon turned, his expression quizzical.

  "If you betray Michael's trust, I'll kill you with my bare hands," Amy said.

  Gideon laughed. "No doubt." And with that he went back to the fire, where he summoned Michael to their training session. He said nothing of what had passed between him and Amy, and it appeared that Michael did not ask. Amy watched them sparring for a while, their blades weaving silver patterns through the night, and marvelled at the speed at which Michael was improving. Lord Gideon really was a very good instructor, she conceded.

  Then she remembered that she was supposed to be on watch, and quickly turned her gaze outwards once again.

  It was strange, even after a few days, to be back on dry land again. Not bad, but not good either. There were things she had missed about the land - food, for one: eating seaweed and raw fish became boring quicker than you'd think even if there were a lot of different kinds of fish about - but there were things she was missing about the sea too. Compared with the oceans, the land seemed lifeless to her now. There was nothing here. A few birds flew in the air high above, too high for her to reach them, and they might see animals working the fields- she would have to get used to seeing cows and horses again, instead of manatees, domestic octopi and giant seahorses- but the whole thing just seemed so barren. No schools of fish swimming hither and thither, no sharks to keep watch for or to hunt, no bottom feeders trawling through the sediment, no men-of-war, no serpents, not even a great and ancient monster to test her skills against. And no depth either. No depth! When she had first gone with her father to his ancestral home, she had been confused and astounded by the freedom of the water, but now she found it was the prison of the land that was unnerving. Amy envied the birds that circled above and lamented that, though she was both human and naiad, she could never be both fish and fowl.

  Fortunately it would not affect her fighting. Naiads, and the other ocean peoples, would swim where they liked, but wars were fought upon the ocean's bed. It was hard to swim in all the armour that nobles and their households wore, and so battles were waged upon the ground where the heavily armoured foot, the hammer of the ocean-host, could be brought to bear. Some riders upon serpents and seahorses, some merfolk more warlike than the rest, would swim above the battleline and fight overhead, but Amy had been trained to fight both mounted and afoot and that would serve her well here. At least unfamiliarity with fighting on an inescapable surface would not get her killed here.

  As the sound of Jason's snoring drifted to her ears from the dying campfire, Amy prayed to Turo for a strong right arm in the battles to come- and that He might move Michael to a spirit of forgiveness for her behaviour.

  If you can hear me, Almighty Turo. If you are even out there. She had never confessed her doubts to anybody at Seafire Peak or at Kraken's Lair, to do so would have been to invite execution for blasphemy and treason, but she had heard the whispers running through the state from her grandfather's court to the merfolk peasants on their coral farms, heard the looks that passed between Ser Viola and her steward when a proclamation arrived from the Champion, noted the absence at the centre of Ocean's Heart, and Amy had not been able to escape that same doubt that gripped so many in the undersea realm: where was God? Had He abandoned the people He himself had created to be His own? Had they failed Him in some way?

  Of course she would not be able to tell anyone on land either. Michael
put such stock in his Turonim faith, needed it so badly, she would never be able to break his heart by telling him.

  Sometimes, she envied him that faith, born of naivety and ignorance but no less strong for it.

  "Amy?" Michael stood behind her, glancing down nervously to his hands. "I'm, um, I'm here to relieve you. You can get some rest now if you like."

  "Right, thanks." Amy stood up and scratched the back of her neck with one hand. "You know... you know what the problem is? The problem is you. It's been seven years and you haven't grown up at all."

  "Oh." Michael grinned. "Thanks, our Amy, that's very nice of you."

  "That wasn't a compliment," Amy snapped, making Michael look so forlorn it almost shamed her. "It's been seven years. I've changed, I've grown; you're still that same boy from back home."

  Michael's brow crinkled with confusion, the way it always did when he was being chided for something he didn't see as a fault. "But I don't want to change, I want to be that boy I was. I was happy then."

  Amy's next rebuke stuck in her throat, and she sighed. "So was I, Michael. Happier than I've been since, maybe."

  "Really?" Michael said. "But... the way people treated you... you've been under the sea! You're a squire!"

  "Sometimes, when you want something badly enough, you get it and find it wasn't half as good as you expected," Amy said. In Lovers' Rock people hated me for being half naiad, at Seafire Peak people hated me for being half human. The difference is in Lovers' Rock I had a couple of friends. "Under the sea didn't have you. Or Felix. Truth is, I miss the old days too sometimes. A lot. But we can't bring them back."

  "I know that," Michael said sharply. "Felix is dead and it's my fault, and there's nothing on this earth which can undo that. But that doesn't mean I have to revel in it. Those were better days, our Amy, and I'll not apologise for thinking so."