by Morgan Rice
When she did, the impact jarred down her arm. The recruit she was facing might have weight to lose, but he still hit with all the power that his size gave him. Kate’s sword shivered with each blow, and she knew that this boy wanted to hurt her then. He wanted to prove to the men there that he was one of them; that he had the same toughness, the same ruthlessness. Kate gave way under the attacks.
Kate could see then just how much Will had been holding back when he’d been fencing with her. There hadn’t been this relentless impact, or this level of aggression behind the blows. Despite it, Kate gritted her teeth and tried to fight back. She guessed that she would at least have greater speed than the boy, although the weight of the practice blade made even that difficult.
Kate cut and thrust, only to find her blows blocked with as much violence as there had been in the boy’s attacks before. Kate stepped back, trying to think, working out if she could manage to feint past the boy’s parries, perhaps, or slip around him with her smaller size and agility.
“Don’t stand there!” the veteran yelled. “Attack her! Close her down!”
Kate wanted to complain about the boy being coached from the sidelines, but there was no time for it. The boy charged at her, pressing in, forcing his blade against hers as he pushed closer. Like that, there was no space for Kate to use her speed, while he could bring his full size and strength to bear.
He hit out with the hilt of his wooden training sword, the rounded basket of it catching Kate across the jaw. She felt the clunk of wood meeting bone with a jarring thud, and for a moment, the world seemed to spin. The boy hit her again, and she fell to one knee.
“Don’t stop,” the veteran called. “If a foe is down, you finish them!”
Kate tried to raise her sword to block the next blow, but the impact of it was enough to jar the weapon from her hand this time, sending it spinning into the muddy grass. The boy struck her once, then again, with the wooden blade. He didn’t hold back, as if to do so would be to show weakness in front of the others. Instead, his face reddened with the effort of swinging it, as if the fact that Kate was still there was only making him angrier.
Kate had been beaten before. She knew that the art of it was to absorb the blows, to never show pain, to just accept what you couldn’t change. She couldn’t give in to that, though. Instead, she threw herself forward, trying to tackle the boy and keep the fight going.
The hilt of the wooden sword struck her across the jaw again and she fell full length to the grass. The boy brought the sword down across her shoulders, then her back, obviously determined not to stop until he was told.
Will was there then, wrenching the blade from his hands with ease. Kate guessed that she should have been grateful that he was stepping in, but right then, it just felt like a demonstration of how unskilled the opponent had been who had just beaten her. Will went to help her up, and Kate brushed away his help, forcing herself back to her feet.
“I can do it,” she said.
“About all you can do,” the veteran snapped from the sidelines. “Will, get this girl out of our camp. I don’t want to see her again. The only place for women in the army is as wives and whores.”
Kate wanted to spit in his face, but she suspected that would just earn her another beating, and right then, she could barely stand from the one she’d just had. This time, when Will took her arm, she let him.
“Come on,” Will said, “we need to get out of here before they decide to do something worse.”
Kate nodded, letting him help her from the training field. She had never felt as humiliated as she did then. She’d thought that she could fight, but one bigger boy had been enough to beat her. She would have added his name to the list of those she wanted revenge on, but that was a problem in itself.
How could she ever hope to take revenge if she couldn’t even win a fight on a practice field? How could she do it when she was this weak, this helpless?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Sophia felt strange, slipping out of the castle grounds and into the city. One of the guards on the gates fell into step with her, and she turned, staring at him, not knowing what he wanted.
The prince will have our posts if we let anything happen.
“You’re following me because you think it’s what Prince Sebastian wants?” Sophia asked.
“Yes, my lady,” the guard said.
A part of her wanted to tell him that it wasn’t what she wanted, because there were places she needed to go today that were better visited unobserved. She didn’t, though, and not just because it would have been suspicious for a noblewoman to turn down that kind of protection.
The truth was that Ashton was a dangerous place. Just the thought of having to go down into it filled Sophia with a sense of fear at all the things that might happen. She’d seen the darker side of the city in her brief time on the street, and worse, she knew there might still be hunters out there.
“Very well,” Sophia said, trying to think how a noble would put it, “but some of this is… a delicate matter. I can trust your discretion?”
“Absolutely, my lady. Would you like me to carry your bag?”
Sophia clutched the leather sack she’d had a servant bring closer. The contents could get her into too much trouble.
“It’s fine,” she said. “There is a gift for Sebastian involved.” The lie came easily enough. It was the only thing Sophia could think of that might ensure the prince didn’t hear every detail.
“He will not hear about it from me,” the guard promised.
First, though, she had a message to send.
Kate? Can you hear me?
She didn’t get an answer, of course. It was too much to ask that their power would operate as smoothly across a city as across a room. Even so, Sophia summoned up an image of one of the squares below the palace, hoping that her sister would get it and be able to come.
It was impossible to know if Kate had gotten the message, so Sophia set about her other task in the town. She asked around the square, being discreet, lifting thoughts where she needed to until she found what she was looking for. It was hard to do it with the presence of the guard just a few paces behind, but to his credit, he didn’t comment or try to dissuade her. She could see why from his thoughts.
Nobles do strange things. It’s not my place.
When she reached the pawnbroker’s shop, Sophia did her best to look the part of a nervous young noblewoman. It didn’t take a lot of acting, just a few thoughts about what might happen if the wrong people saw her here. It was bad enough that there was still the guard near her, watching her every move.
“Wait here for me,” Sophia ordered, and then plunged into the shop.
Inside, a man in an expensive suit of clothes that had obviously been patched many times regarded her warily.
“What can I do for you… my lady?”
“It’s delicate,” Sophia said.
“Discretion is my watchword.”
“I find myself short of funds in the wake of the latest ball, and obviously I can never wear that dress again… would you be interested in such things?”
It turned out that he was, although at nowhere near what they were truly worth. Even so, the small pile of Royals and shillings he handed over seemed like a fortune. For the first time, her theft of the clothes seemed like what it was, because now Sophia could see exactly how much she’d taken from Angelica and the others.
Still, she would need the money if she was going to play the part of the noble Sophia of Meinhalt, and she couldn’t afford to keep the dress where it might one day be recognized. It was better to be safe, to get rid of it.
She had just concluded the transaction when she glanced out of the shop’s window and saw a familiar figure on the edges of the crowd. Sophia saw her sister watching as though ready to run at the first hint of trouble.
Taking a guard with her to see Kate probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
“Is there another way out of here?” Sophia asked.
“My lady is very cautious about being seen,” the pawnbroker said. “You needn’t worry. There’s a reason why I’m so close to the noble quarter.”
He let her out of a back door nonetheless, and Sophia slipped around past the spot where the guard was standing. She was able to buy two eel pies and some beer while she walked back across the square to her sister. She found herself wondering how things had gone for Kate in the last couple of days, and hoping that they had gone well. She certainly hoped that things were less complicated for her sister than they were for her.
The moment Sophia saw her sister walking toward her in the square, the moment she saw Kate’s face, she knew that things were anything but simple for her.
There were bruises there, and it seemed as though she had a split lip, only just beginning to scab over. One of her hands was bandaged, as if from a burn, and she was moving without her usual energy and strength. Sophia ran to her, wrapping her arms around Kate.
“What happened to you?” Sophia asked. “Are you all right?”
“It’s nothing,” Kate said, and Sophia could see the look of determination there that meant that Kate was trying to be brave.
You can’t hide things from me, Sophia sent, and this close, it wasn’t like some blind sending across the city. What happened?
“All kinds of things,” Kate said. She took one of the eel pies when Sophia offered it. “It’s part of why I could come. Thomas let me off from the forge after everything.”
“Is he the one who did this?” Sophia asked. She didn’t know what she could do to someone who had hurt her sister like this, but she would find something.
“What?” Kate asked. “No! This… it’s embarrassing. I tried to join one of the free companies.”
“You tried to join a regiment?” Sophia said. “And they beat you for it? That’s where all these injuries are from?”
“Not all of them,” Kate admitted. “I got the burn when I was clumsy in the forge. Oh, and some barge hands threw me off a barge when I tried to leave the city.”
That was the last thing Sophia wanted to hear. She wanted her sister to be happy.
“Oh, Kate, why couldn’t you stay safe? Be the kind of girl who likes to sit in the library and read?”
“I am, remember?” Kate countered. “I took us there.”
Sophia had forgotten that the library had been the first place they’d gone looking for safety. It seemed like a lifetime ago, even though it had just been a matter of days.
“You’d love the library in the palace,” Sophia said. “They have more books than anyone could hope to read.”
“You should love it there then,” Kate said. “I can’t believe that you made it inside.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Sophia assured her. “I had to sneak into the middle of a ball.”
Sophia started to tell her the story of it, and she watched her sister’s eyes widen in response.
“You seduced a prince?” Kate said, in obvious disbelief.
“I think… we kind of seduced each other,” Sophia said. She didn’t want to think about what she had with Sebastian as the kind of simple manipulation some nobles perpetrated with those who had more money. “He’s wonderful, Kate.”
“And you’re obviously doing well,” Kate said, with a gesture toward Sophia’s rich clothes.
“Yes, I…” Sophia hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s dangerous here too. Already, there are people asking questions, wondering who I am. They might not be beating me, but there are girls there who… I upset them when Sebastian picked me. They won’t forget.”
Kate reached out to put a hand on her arm. “It sounds as though we should both be careful. Are you sure you’re doing the right thing?”
“Are you?” Sophia countered. She couldn’t let Kate see the truth: that she wasn’t sure. That there was a part of her that wanted to walk away from all of it before it went too badly wrong. She had some money. She and Kate could get on a boat on the river and head out of the city. Except… she wasn’t sure that she could leave Sebastian that easily.
“I need to do this,” Kate said. “These bruises are nothing. I’m going to learn to fight. I’m going to get to where I don’t have to rely on anybody.”
To Sophia, she sounded like she was trying to convince herself, but Sophia didn’t say anything. She knew what it was like to want to believe that things would turn out all right, even though there were so many things that could go wrong.
“And,” Kate said, “there’s a boy. His name is Will.”
Her sister sounded hopeful now. Sophia knew that tone, because she heard it in her own voice when she spoke about Sebastian.
“Tell me about Will,” Sophia said with a smile.
“He’s wonderful,” Kate said. “It was his regiment I was going to, and—”
“And you were trying to impress him?” Sophia asked.
Kate looked a little embarrassed. “A little.”
Sophia put an arm around her sister. “Kate, you shouldn’t be doing things that could get you hurt.”
“Neither should you,” Kate countered. “It sounds really dangerous in the palace.” She paused for a moment. “We could still run away. Come with me now. We could just go, leave the city and find somewhere else.”
Sophia wished that she could. She wanted nothing more than to look after her sister and make sure that she never came to harm again.
“I can’t,” she said instead, even though it hurt to do it. “I have to do this. I have to go back.”
Kate hugged her. “Are you sure?”
Sophia wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t let her sister see that.
“You can rely on me,” she said instead. “If I hear you calling, I’ll come.”
“Me too,” Kate promised. “Wherever you are, wherever you go, I’ll come if you need me. I’ll storm the palace if I have to.”
She probably would, and just the thought of that made Sophia smile.
“In the meantime, take this,” Sophia said, pressing most of the coins she’d gotten for the dress into her sister’s hand. “And Kate? Maybe try to spend more time in libraries than getting beaten?”
She saw her sister nod.
“Maybe I will,” Kate said. “Maybe I will.”
***
Kate made her way back through the city, keeping her usual watch for anyone who might want to harm her. The fight down at the training grounds had taught her that there was always someone who would try to hurt her. Wherever she went, someone would want to prove that they were stronger, or that she was worthless.
She’d almost asked Sophia to help get her out of everything she was caught up in, almost asked her big sister to pluck her out of danger like some helpless child. If she hadn’t been able to see how precarious things were for Sophia too, Kate might even have done it.
Or maybe not. Not before she’d learned to fight. Not before she’d had her revenge. Her sister had been able to give her a clue of how to do that, at least.
She hadn’t been to the penny library since the day she and Sophia had run from the House of the Unclaimed. Even now, approaching the old structure felt like a stupid move, because what if someone was watching, waiting for her to do it? Kate could only trust that even the masked nuns wouldn’t be that vindictive. They had more girls than just her to torment, after all.
She crept inside, and sure enough, Geoffrey was there on the outer desk, casting what he probably thought was a stern eye over those who tried to enter. When Kate approached, she could see his surprise.
“Kate, they didn’t catch you. I… I’m glad. And I’m sorry that I didn’t dare to hide you.”
Kate didn’t tell him that she forgave him. She wasn’t in the habit of forgiving people. Even so, she waved it away, taking out a penny from the money Sophia had just given her.
“I want to use the library. Are you going to call for the watch while I do it?”
“No, of course not. And you don’t need to pay. I owe you that much, at least.”
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He owed more than that, but for now, Kate was prepared to ignore it. There were things that she needed to know, and Geoffrey always had a good idea of where to find things in the chaotic organization of the penny library.
“Where can I find books on fighting, Geoffrey?” Kate asked. “Are there books on it?”
Geoffrey spread his hands. “There are. We have tales of some of the great warriors of the past, and manuals on the modern warfare with pikes and muskets. There are even a couple of books written by the sword masters of the continent.”
Kate started with those, because they seemed the most promising, yet in some ways, they were the most disappointing books she had read. One contained string after string of illustrations, but they had no words to accompany them, and seemed to be in an entirely random order. Another was written in one of the languages from across the Knife-Water, and even without knowing the words, Kate could see that it was more about showing how many things the writer knew than about teaching them. It was a way to proclaim his skills, or perhaps to secure a post as a fencing master, not something designed to learn from.
She started to read the books that focused on the tales of the great warriors of the past instead: Renaud of Bevan, the islander McIlty. Kate could see from the start that they were just collections of folk tales, and even the parts that talked about how they had achieved their great strength seemed like nothing Kate could hope to do. Carrying a calf around on her shoulders every day until it was full grown? Wrestling every man she met until all kept clear of her? They sounded impossible.
The next book didn’t seem much better. It was a slim, strange volume, which seemed to be half sword manual, half fantastical account of the life of a swordsman named Argent. It had seemed promising at first, because his work claimed that he came from Ashton, but there were fragments that seemed like pure fiction. There was even a section claiming that he had started life as a skillful but weak swordsman, but had gained strength by going to a woodland glade south of the city and cheating the spirits he found at a fountain there. It came complete with a map, claiming to show the spot he’d gone to and pointing to signs that led there: a way marker, a set of stone steps, and more. Kate sighed and put the book down harder than she probably should have.