‘Cook is covering for us,’ she said.
‘Us?’ Lecne asked.
Hasti laughed. ‘We want to learn to use to the sword too.’
‘Swords are for men,’ Lecne said. ‘Nenia, this is not fair.’
Aranthur cut in. ‘In the City, there are girls as well as boys in my sword class.’
Hasti stuck out her tongue at Lecne.
‘There was a nun here last week and she had a sword,’ she said.
‘You’ll need sticks,’ Aranthur said. ‘I’m out of swords,’ he added, hoping to lighten the mood.
A few minutes later, they all stood in a ragged line and he began to teach them the first exercise he could remember learning: a simple pair of cuts – high to low, first right to left and then left to right.
Hasti was hopeless, an endless series of giggles from beginning to end. Lecne laboured manfully, swishing the sword far too hard and ingloriously cutting the point into the dirt more than once, with a thousand embarrassed apologies.
Nenia, on the other hand, was a natural athlete. She mimicked Aranthur’s pose so well that he laughed to detect his own flaw of stamping his front foot instead of gliding it.
Then he taught them some simple blocks, or parades, which in his lessons were called covers because, his master declaimed, it wasn’t so important to block the opponent’s sword as to cover the body. Aranthur found himself repeating this as if he’d made it up himself. He showed them the simple turn of the hand that best covered the centre of the body from the two basic stances he’d taught. He showed them a universal parry that covered all blows.
And then, when it was clear that everyone’s wrists were tired, he showed them what he’d taught: two poses, the names of which he tried to teach; two covers; two cuts.
By then, Hasti had stopped giggling and even Nenia was tired. He bowed at the end of his summary.
Behind him, the sound of clapping.
To his mortification, he turned to find the Magister Sparthos leaning against the back wall of the inn. The man turned without a word and went inside.
‘Men. I hate them, all arrogance and posturing.’ Nenia smiled at Hasti, who smiled, in turn, at Aranthur.
‘I’m cold, now that we’re not moving,’ she said. ‘Let’s have some cider.’
The four of them went into the kitchen, and Aranthur allowed the other three to soothe him. They’d clearly enjoyed the lesson and he found he’d enjoyed teaching it. But he shrugged as Hasti put a hot cup of cider by his hand and then sat by him, across the big kitchen table from Nenia and her brother.
‘I’m sure I sounded like an arse,’ he said.
Nenia shrugged. ‘I liked it. I don’t know much more than I did, but I have a sense of it now.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘If you were staying, I’d have more lessons.’
‘I don’t really know enough to be teaching.’
Nenia leant over, as if scrutinising his face.
‘Are you sure you’re a man?’ she asked. ‘Men are overbearing, rude and boastful.’
Aranthur smiled and spread his hands – unconsciously imitating Magos Ulthese, the Memory Magos.
‘Boasting is a way of saying you are weak,’ he said.
‘Bright Sun, there’s a school that teaches that?’ Nenia asked. ‘Send my brother.’
Lecne demonstrated his prowess by feinting with his left hand to distract his sister and elbowing her sharply with his right.
‘I think I’d be terrified,’ Hasti said. It was odd that she said it provocatively, almost aggressively.
Nenia leant over the table.
‘You only believe that because people tell you that women should be afraid,’ she said. ‘That’s all crap.’
Hasti smiled, her head tilted and her eyes a little down, at Aranthur.
‘Would you want a girl who was a better swordsman – swordswoman – than you?’
All three of them looked at him.
‘Be honest,’ Hasti giggled.
Aranthur tugged at his short beard.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I mean, unless I marry a fool, my wife is likely to do something better than me. Probably quite a few things.’
Nenia wasn’t impressed. ‘Men say that, but they mean unimportant things like raising babies.’
Aranthur knew that he had Hasti’s attention, and his sense of what was right was warring with his desire to please her. Nenia did not seem like a girl who could be pleased at all – although she smiled more than she frowned.
‘It’s not likely to come up, is it?’ Lecne asked. ‘I mean, most women aren’t strong enough to fight. They’re too weak.’
‘Really?’ Nenia said, and glowered.
‘We can’t all be giants like you, Nenia,’ Hasti purred.
Without another word, Nenia got up and left the table. The kitchen was almost as big as the common room, and it took her time to clear it. In that time, Aranthur could think of nothing to say. But the moment she was gone, he stood up.
Lecne frowned at Hasti.
‘That was pretty mean,’ he said.
Hasti hung her head.
‘She’s good at all the games,’ she pouted.
Aranthur was fairly certain that the cat-faced girl had played the game exactly as she meant to. He almost admired her for it. Almost.
He rose. ‘I’ll go and find her,’ he said.
Ignoring the protests of the other two, he passed into the common room, where Donna Cucina stood with her hands on her hips.
‘What are you children doing?’ she asked.
Aranthur flushed. ‘Talking. I … er … taught. A little about swords.’
Donna Cucina raised one eyebrow.
‘Why is my daughter crying?’ she asked.
Aranthur shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
He did know, but he thought that it wasn’t his place to say.
‘She’s gone upstairs,’ Donna Cucina said. ‘And much as I like you, my lad, you are not following my daughter to an empty attic.’ She smiled. ‘I was young once, too.’
Aranthur was both amused and annoyed at how often older people had to insist that they had once been his age. He turned to go back to his companions when he saw Magister Sparthos beckon to him.
With some trepidation, he went across the floor. The man’s two companions were gone.
‘Sit,’ he said.
With a bow, Aranthur sat.
The older man poured him some wine.
‘Your lesson,’ he said. ‘Not bad.’
He drank.
Aranthur beamed. He drank too.
‘I can see that charlatan Vladith’s teaching in you.’ He made a face, as if smelling something bad. ‘Yet you understood the basics of the art. When you fought – here – you let your adversary take the scabbard off your sword. Brilliant.’
Aranthus flushed with praise. ‘It’s something we drill—’ he began.
‘So?’ the old man said vehemently. ‘You did it. With your life on the line, in a fight, you did it. Of course, as soon as your steel was clear you did almost everything wrong, but it didn’t matter, did it? You had a drawn sword and you were determined to attack – you had the initiative.’ He smiled, and his smile was colder than his frown. ‘Of course your point control – your aim – was terrible, and you were merely fortunate in your blow, but what of it? All that can be trained.’ He nodded. ‘And you are strong as an ox and fast. You do a few things very well.’
Aranthur looked at the table. ‘Thank you, Magister.’
He thought of all the wood he had cut over Sun Rise week.
‘And you have the consolation of knowing that you’ve killed more men than Master Vladith.’ The old man barked a laugh.
Aranthur was offended on his teacher’s behalf.
It must have showed, because the old man shrugged.
‘I can see you like him. He should treasure that. But he’s a fake, boy. Oh, he’s had instruction, but much of what he teaches is pomposity, complex dances executed very fast – eh?’ H
e nodded. ‘Would you care to see a really good piece of sword work?’
Aranthur didn’t like his tone. But …
‘Yes,’ he said. It felt a little like agreeing to a loan shark’s price. Which he had done, to his own consternation. Twice.
‘Can you get up early?’ the older man asked. ‘At first light?’
Aranthur nodded again.
‘Good. You saw the two men here? Both swordsmen. Mikal Sapu of Mitla – solid, conservative, flashes of brilliance. Kartez Da Silva is from Trantolo – far to the west, where oranges come from.’ He leant over. ‘Tomorrow they fight.’
‘A duel?’
Aranthur realised that the swordsman was, if not drunk, at least tipsy.
‘Yes. All perfectly legal – we’re outside the City and I have the papers, signed by each.’
The magister leant back and drank off his wine, and then poured himself more.
‘A duel,’ Aranthur said.
In that moment, an image of the burst of blood when Don Cucino’s hand had almost been severed came into his head, and he, in turn, emptied his wine cup.
His sense of the morality of the thing warred with his desire to see a bout of really good swordsmanship.
‘I’ll try.’
‘Oh, do try,’ the magister said, suddenly bored. He waved his hand, dismissing Aranthur.
He dined with the family in the kitchen, and the food was delicious – the sort of food that people ate in the City, but made with the best and freshest ingredients.
Donna Cucina took him aside after dinner.
‘You said you think you’ll come back this way at ploughing?’ she asked.
He nodded. He’d talked a little – perhaps too much – about his family at dinner.
‘I think you are a good boy. If you come, would you consider bringing me some things?’
She had a long list of rare spices.
Next to each was a price.
‘You can write!’ he said, and then felt like an arse.
But Donna Cucina smiled, the way women do when men are patronising.
‘I run an inn, dear,’ she said. ‘Now look here. These are the prices I pay for them, to a tinker who I don’t really like. Last year he sold me nutmeg that I think was solid wood, among other things. His cinnamon is not the best, and I need better.’
He was flattered, and a little appalled.
‘The spice market is not so far from the Studion,’ he said. ‘But—’
‘We can send you with money.’
Aranthur wanted to do it. He liked these people. And it would give him more reason to go home for ploughing.
‘I’ll do the buying,’ he said. ‘You can repay me when I come back.’
She nodded. ‘Very fair.’
She looked past him, where the kitchen girls and Nenia had cleared the table and then pushed it against the wall. A pair of Dhadhi – the wandering folk from the mountains of Atti and the islands east of Zhou, or so people said – had been fed, and now flourished their instruments: a mandolin and a pair of pipes. The Dhadhi were tall, often very beautiful, their faces narrow and their limbs elegant. They made fine dancers and musicians and swordspeople, too. Some said they lived an extraordinary time. Others said that was a myth. His mother and his Magi claimed they were related to the Haiarkayo.
‘We’ll dance in the common room, thank you very much,’ Donna Cucina barked at her daughter. She looked up at Aranthur, who was a head taller than she, and laughed. ‘The girls don’t like dancing with customers,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s good for business.’
They danced for hours. The two Dhadhi were excellent – far better than most of the street musicians in Megara – but their people were usually good musicians. The local farmers danced and some even brought their wives and daughters. The youngest of the three swordsmen – the dapper man from far-off Trantolo – danced, although it was clear he didn’t know the local steps. The other two swordsmen kept to their table. It was odd to Aranthur to see the three sitting together and sharing wine, all the while knowing that two of them would fight in the morning. He assumed it was something great swordsmen did, and he felt a sort of religious awe.
The dances were the same as those of his own village – violent, fast, haliardi in which the best dancers competed to kick as high as they could, and the stately Orta, and the Mati, where two men danced with one lady who looked at them by turns while each tried to out-dance the other. The man who received the lady’s nod got to lift her and turn her as high over his head as his strength allowed. Failure brought ribald comments and success only led to more nods. It was a pleasant sport, and Nenia and Hasti were very good at it. Nenia could kick as high as any man in the haliardo, but she was kind enough to leap – just to the music – when Aranthur’s turn to lift her came. He managed to raise her high enough to get a burst of applause. When he set her down – with a proper whirl and a blessing for having a sister who insisted on practice – she smiled at him. There was something marvellous in her smile, her height, her presence, and the sweat on her neck and her obvious delight.
‘You can dance!’ she said.
But she stepped nimbly away before he could ask her to dance again, and danced with a local boy, a farmer’s son.
Hasti replaced her. ‘Well, sir? Am I not worth a dance?’
An older man might have replied with a quip, but Aranthur could only smile and beg her pardon, which she gave quickly enough.
‘I wager I’ll be easier to lift than Nenia.’
Aranthur danced the second Mati with the Westerner as his second man.
‘Da Silva,’ he said in an accent that seemed over-full of s’s.
The use of the surname might have been meant as an affront, but Aranthur didn’t care. He was having a good time, and he preferred to assume the Westerner had a different custom.
‘Timos,’ Aranthur said.
He wished that he had a doublet on, like Da Silva, instead of a loose peasant shirt with some of his mother’s tablet weaving at neck and wrists. But the man was older and clearly prosperous.
He smiled at Hasti. ‘You are the beautiful one here.’
His diction was careful, but his intent obvious. He kissed her hand.
She blushed. ‘What fine manners.’
The dance began.
Aranthur was very careful of the Westerner, who seemed intent on cutting him off or stepping on his foot. And Aranthur, who was learning in the Studion to observe, already suspected that Hasti intended to choose his rival at the moment of the lift.
And so it proved. Da Silva moved before she nodded.
Aranthur was fairly sure he’d intended to barge into him, had he left his place. As it was, Da Silva was a beat late into the lift. Hasti had already bent her legs for her leap, and the results were not pretty. The Westerner had superb reflexes, however, and was strong enough to complete the movements. As he put Hasti back on the floor, he glared at Aranthur.
Aranthur would have liked to return that glare with the steady cool of a soldier, but he fell back a step, and his hands trembled. However, he was a veteran dancer. He came around and completed the figure well, skipping and changing step to the complicated beat of the Mati music. As he passed Hasti he saw that she would choose him for the second figure – which was only good manners in any village girl. But he was equally aware that the Westerner was intending to pick a fight. It was written on him.
So as the first notes of the second figure started, Aranthur spun – an allowable, if showy, alternative. He caught Hasti’s hand and turned her under it so that when Da Silva moved, he bumped into the woman and not his adversary. These tricks were not so uncommon in village life, but of course the newcomer didn’t know. Aranthur danced past him, sweeping Hasti along. When the beat came to raise her, he was exactly on the music and her leap was so high that he almost – almost – lost her over his head.
Aranthur raised her, turning, to place her in the correct direction for the rest of the figure. He put her down to the music
– with the satisfaction that he’d lifted her all the way over his head, the way he could lift his sister. The two of them finished the figure with their kicks, and bowed as the music ended.
‘You are tolerably clumsy, eh?’ Da Silva said.
He chose to stand very close. He wore a small smile and seemed very much at ease.
Hasti laughed – probably the worst thing she might have done.
‘You will learn our dances if you stay long enough, sir. But it was you who misstepped, not he.’
The Westerner ignored her as if she didn’t exist.
‘Do you always flinch when a man talks to you?’ he asked, pushing closer. ‘Apologise for your gross stumbling and beg my pardon.’
Aranthur knew where all this was going. He thought it all through – as best he could in the time it takes a young person to draw one breath and decide to capitulate. He needed none of this.
‘No,’ he said, as if his voice belonged to someone else. It shook, and it sounded high and scared. And yet he heard himself refuse to apologise.
Da Silva was surprised, and in the moment of his hesitation, Aranthur changed weight and pushed past him.
‘You stand too close,’ he muttered as he passed.
As well to be hanged for a lion as a lamb, he thought.
What made me say that?
He wasn’t under a compulsion. It was his own bravado talking.
I’m a fool, he thought.
Right on time, Da Silva turned. His hand was raised to strike.
Master Sparthos glided between them and caught the Westerner’s hand.
‘You are making a mistake,’ he said gently.
‘This overgrown boy offended me,’ Da Silva spat.
‘You are wasting the very spirit that will make you the victor tomorrow,’ the magister said.
‘After I kill that idiot, I will kill this one. Boy!’ he spat. ‘You have offended me.’
‘You intended to be offended,’ Aranthur said to a silent room.
‘I challenge you!’ Da Silva spat.
The magister – he was in dark blue today – shook his head like a disapproving father.
Cold Iron (Masters & Mages) Page 12