If he has been at this the whole time then he is stronger than I thought. He frowned, reached for the dummy to drag it back to Torvul’s armory, then stopped and stomped over to the boy’s side.
“Norbert,” he grunted, “you are going to make yourself ill.”
“No,” the lad said, his voice a strangled grasp.
“Not from the exercise, fool. From the snow. Your clothes are going to get soaked. They probably already are, and you will catch your death in wet clothes. You, an Oyrwyn lad, ought to know that. Clear yourself a space.”
Norbert ignored him and squeezed out three more dips. Allystaire could see, beneath his hat, the lad’s face turning bright red from the exertion.
Grumbling, Allystaire bent down and seized him by the shoulder, hauling him to his feet. “Go home, Norbert. I mean it this time. I will drag you there myself if I must. Dry and warm yourself.”
The boy started to protest.
“If you want to exercise, carry rocks, break ice, chop wood, and run on your own time, I cannot stop you. Do them elsewhere, where you are warm and dry. Go.”
Allystaire let go of Norbert’s arm, then turned on a heel and stalked off as the boy reached up to massage his arm with his other hand. He didn’t look back as he made his way to the Inn.
* * *
The next morning, Norbert was standing outside the Inn when Allystaire awoke, clutching a stone in his hands.
Allystaire strode towards him in the soft pre-dawn light, but Norbert stood his ground and spoke defiantly.
“You said if I wanted t’run and carry rocks and all the rest, on my own time, you couldn’t stop me. Well it’s my own time and you don’t own the village, so if I want t’run the same time as you, in the same places, you can’t rightly stop me doin’ that, either.”
Allystaire frowned darkly. “I suppose I cannot.” With that, he headed for the water barrel, perfunctorily broke the ice with a couple blows of his fist, then picked up his own stones, and churned his legs into motion.
Later, soaked in sweat and sheathing his sword, Allystaire looked over to find Norbert kneeling on a cleared patch of dirt, massaging his shoulders, watching his strokes at the dummy.
“How long did it take you t’become a great swordsman?” The boy looked like he wanted to swallow the words back as soon as he spoke, as Allystaire hadn’t said a word to him since they’d started to run that morning.
At this question, though, Allystaire laughed. “A great swordsman? I am no such thing, Norbert. Not at all. I have a familiarity with the sword because it was required of me, nothing more.”
“You seem like a master,” Norbert breathed. “Who in the Baronies could be better?”
“Lionel Delondeur, for one. Gerard and Gilrayan Oyrwyn, as well, when it comes to form and technique, anyway. Many of the knights I trained. My own father, of a certainty. I could go on. The world is filled with better swordsmen than me, and Idgen Marte is probably equal or better to them all.”
“Then why’re you still alive after all the years o’fighting?”
“Well, I prefer the hammer and the lance to the sword, and when it comes to the latter especially, I have some small claim to renown,” Allystaire said, then corrected himself. “Had.”
“Renown?”
“Fame. Mastery. Call it what you like. And besides, it is not always the better swordsman who wins any fight, even man to man with no luck, good or bad, in the way.”
“No? Who does then? If luck don’t play a part, as you say.”
“The one who is willing to risk the most hurt, to bear the most pain,” Allystaire replied, quickly, instinctively. “I am not saying to be reckless in a fight, a berzerker, pay no heed to guarding yourself. Yet once you accept that any fight is going to hurt—and that you can accept that hurt, whatever it is, however great, however grievous, take it into yourself and master it and continue on—you will not often lose.”
Norbert let his hands fall back to the dirt, but didn’t get back into position to resume his dips yet. “When one o’those Battle-Wights slashed me,” he said, lifting a hand and rubbing two fingers speculatively along the scar that ran along his cheek, “I thought it had taken my eye. Turns out blood had just splashed in it, but…I was more scared than I like to say. I thought I was done for sure. Blinded. Dead.”
Allystaire drew his blade again, and simply assumed his stance, balancing carefully, shifting weight occasionally from one foot to the other. “It is not what you fear or what you feel that matters, Norbert,” he said, letting his eyes focus on the edge of his blade again, arms struggling to keep it still. “It is what you do.”
There was silence. The sword hung in the air, a still and deadly icicle ascending from Allystaire’s hands. “What did you do?” He grated the words through clenched teeth.
“Kept swinging,” Norbert replied. “I might’ve thought I was blinded but I knew where the cursed thing was. With Giraud and Henri we clubbed it t’the ground and kept clubbin’ till it was broken.”
Allystaire grunted as the sword wavered and fell. He stopped it short of the ground, pulled his arms close to his body, and then swung the heavy weapon back into its sheath. He looked over at the gangly youth, who stared a moment, then lowered himself back to the ground, stretched out his legs, and began pushing himself up and down again with jerking, quick movements.
“Slower,” Allystaire said, watching critically. “Control the movement. Control every movement, always, on your feet, on the ground, on a horse, with a sword or a lance or a bow, a bottle or a woman.” Then, after a pause. “Spread your hands a bit further apart. Keep your legs straight and do not let your hips sag.”
Norbert did as instructed, though he let out a giggle when Allystaire said “woman.” The boy was carefully spreading his hands when Allystaire leaned over him.
“Did I say something funny, lad?” There was something strong and deep in Allystaire’s voice, quiet though the words were. Something of ice and iron, a tension in his jaw, a hardening of the eyes.
Norbert shook his head and began pumping his long body up and down on his skinny arms, more slowly than before. Allystaire eyed him critically, sniffed. “That will do. Only just.” Then turned and walked back to the dummy, dragging it towards the armory.
Inwardly, he cursed and wondered what had just happened.
By the time he’d pushed, pulled, wrestled, and cajoled the dummy back into place, and replaced his borrowed sword, Torvul was standing outside, between the shed and the house, wearing a thick fur-lined robe and heavy boots, a steaming mug clasped in one huge hand.
“Bit o’the parade ground armsmaster in you yet, boy.”
“Boy?” Allystaire replied. “I have spent more years at war than Norbert has living, and I am a boy?”
“Well,” Torvul said, slurping hot liquid. “Seeing that I am much more than twice your age, and possess thrice your wisdom and experience at the most conservative estimate I can conceive, I’ll go on callin’ you boy.” The dwarf took a couple steps and peeked around the edge of the house, taking in Norbert at his dips. “First squire, eh?”
“Norbert is no squire,” Allystaire said quietly. “He is a fool boy who does not know what he wants.”
“That so?” Torvul had another swallow of his tea. He leaned forward again, peering at the lad, listening to his grunts of exertion. “Seems like he knows what he wants. Stronger arms. Where’d he get that idea?”
Allystaire frowned, etching deep lines in his scarred, homely face. “He was waving a sword around like an idiot, trying to mimic me. He was like to stab himself.”
Torvul snickered. “I know exactly where he got the idea. I was listenin’ yesterday morning. You make a great racket early in the day, too great for a winter morning, if you ask me. But Her Ladyship’s work isn’t done while laying in bed, more’s the pity.”
“You deserve a rest,
Torvul.”
“More than some and less than others,” the dwarf replied, shrugging. “Too much work to do to rest much. Idgen Marte’s sword, that’s done, finally. Had to finish it in the dead of night, but it’s done. Then your hammer, a new sword, seein’ what I can do with all that dross,” he added, gesturing towards the armory with his tea mug, from which he took another pull. “Puttin’ together what I can for the planting, come spring. Working on improving the local beer recipes. Trying to grow some decent mushrooms.”
Allystaire broke in, incredulous. “Where are you growing mushrooms?”
Torvul gestured to the house. “In there. They offered it to me for a workshop, didn’t say I couldn’t turn a room to fungiculture if I liked. You didn’t think I was sleeping in there, did you? My wagon’s just around the other side. That’s home, where I do most o’my work.”
Allystaire was silent a moment then ventured, curiously. “What about Stonesinging? Doing any of that?”
Torvul turned his face towards Allystaire, eyes narrowed. “What makes you ask about that?”
“I was still conscious when you took the sorcerer on, Torvul,” Allystaire replied. “I heard what he said and I heard the fear in his voice. I thought you had said that was long gone from the world.”
“I did, and it is,” Torvul replied. “It was a last echo, one last bit of song from the bones of my Mother. I think it is probably the last Stonesong that will ever be heard.”
“Surely not,” Allystaire said. “If you can do it once, you can—”
“You don’t understand,” Torvul said gruffly, finishing his tea and then dumping the dregs to the ground with a flick of his wrist. “The song didn’t come from me, boy. It never did. The song was in the earth itself, the stones of our homes. You…” He sighed. “You can’t understand, but it’s gone, probably forever, or for so long as makes no difference. We used it all. Called it all forth. Used it to sink great tunnels into the earth and to work wonders of stone and metal and gemmary. We relied upon it. When we found it slacking, did we turn back to our hands, our cunning and craft? No.” The dwarf spat. “We let our homes crumble and fall apart and finally, when we could stand the sight of our failures any longer, we fled.” He glared up at Allystaire. “You’re probably the only human alive has ever heard the truth of this.”
Uncertain, hesitant, Allystaire spoke anyway. “Then where did it come from?”
“The crossbow. The singing consumed it.”
“How did you know to—”
“I was apprentice to one of the last stonesingers,” Torvul said. “When I was young, before your father was a glimmer in your grandfather’s eye. When we still believed that the songs were there to be found, to be called forth and shaped to our need. In the homes, the stonesingers were the masters of all crafts. There was no medium they could not work in, nothing they could not shape. They had their different gifts: great weaponsmiths, or healers, armor crafters, toolmakers, alchemists…” The dwarf’s voice drifted quieter and quieter till it faded into silence. “That’s enough. Go stop that boy before he passes out.”
Torvul peeked around the edge of the house again. “Too late. Best go wake him before he drowns in his own sweat.”
* * *
For two more days, the pattern continued; Allystaire found Norbert waiting for him outside the Inn every morning and tried his best to shake the youth’s determination. Finally, on the third day, as Norbert dogged him on the way to the armory, Allystaire turned on his heels.
“This is not a story, Norbert,” he said suddenly.
“What? What d’ya mean?”
“You keep following me, mimicking me, trying to earn…what? My respect. You have that. Training? To become a squire, a knight, my boon companion?” Allystaire shook his head. “There is no show of perseverance or heroic deed that is going to change my mind. I am not going to set you a task, tell you to fetch some mythical flower or impossible magical trinket, rescue a maiden or slay a monster, and then agree to take you in. This is not the story where the peasant boy knelt outside the knight’s tower for three days in the howling snow without eating or moving or sleeping, and moved the knight so that he took the boy in as his page and made him his heir.”
Norbert eyed him defiantly. “Dunno those stories. Don’t care if—”
Allystaire suddenly leaned forward and grabbed the boy around the collar. “Go. Home.” The words were spoken through clenched teeth and curled, whitened lips. “If you keep dogging my steps, you are going to hurt yourself. You are not made for this. GO.” With a final shout, he tried to shove the boy away.
Norbert’s face scrunched up with sudden fury, his chin quivering, his eyes watering. Crying out wordlessly, he clumsily threw a balled up fist into Allystaire’s face.
The blow was a good deal more shocking than it was painful. Allystaire’s jaw fell open slightly, his eyes widened. From the looks of him, Norbert was just as surprised as Allystaire was, his mouth agape, lifting his hands and stammering.
Allystaire’s jaw set grimly, his hands curled into fists at his sides, and he took deep breaths to calm the anger that rose inside him.
“That,” he said carefully, “was foolish, Norbert. Every man does foolish things in his life and I will let this one pass with a warning.”
With another loud cry, Norbert threw himself at Allystaire, swinging his fist again in a lazy, roundabout arc aimed roughly at the side of his head.
For Allystaire, it was simple instinct to bend his knees and step beneath the uncontrolled, poorly aimed blow. He shifted his feet into a proper stance, weight distributed, power pushing up from his feet and through his torso as he twisted it into the punch that traveled less than a foot into Norbert’s unprotected side. He tried, at the last second, to pull some of the force from the blow.
Norbert let out a loud cry and doubled over, clutching his side, thin arms wrapped around himself. Allystaire stepped away, his hands still fisted, watching the boy carefully.
Sucking in deep, huge lungfuls of air, Norbert forced himself back upright, though he kept one hand pressed where Allystaire’s blow had landed. His face was still crunched in anger, tears leaking from the corners now. He took a hesitant step towards Allystaire, raising his free hand weakly.
“I am not going to hit you again, Norbert,” Allystaire said, consciously forcing his hands to his sides. “I am sorry that I did the once.”
Norbert lunged towards him, throwing both hands out and trying to grapple Allystaire’s collar. He was fairly easily shrugged off, pushed away.
“What…you told me,” the boy wheezed, as he finally peeled his arm away from his side, and raised it ineffectually, “about pain. This is what you meant, right?” He launched another awkwardly looping blow. This time Allystaire caught it and turned the lad’s wrist, used his grip to bend Norbert’s arm and turn him around so Allystaire could throw his free arm around Norbert’s neck, immobilizing him for a moment. Then he let go and shoved him away, hard, resisted the urge to add a kick to his seat.
Norbert went sprawling, but came right back to his feet. He balled his fists, then threw his to his sides in frustration. Tears still welled at the corner of his eyes.
“Why? Why m’I not good enough? Was it all just lies, when y’said that it weren’t about noble birth and links, but about bein’ willing to bear the burdens?”
The words stung a little more than Allystaire expected, but he shook his head. “It is not only about willingness, Norbert. I cannot take the time to teach you what you must know.”
“Renard himself said I was the only real spearman o’the lot, and I’m a decent enough bowshot. A knight can’t carry a bow and a spear?”
Allystaire had no instant answer for that. “Why do you want this, Norbert?”
“You know why!” Norbert shouted. “Ya come along and…and you change everythin’ and then you can ask me why I’d want t’
follow ya? How can I not want it? I told you I left the moors n’the bogs because the brigands looked better t’me than cuttin’ turf all day, and you forgive me for that. But you won’t forgive me for thinkin’ now that followin’ you looks better’n bein’ a farmer? I don’t like turnips and cabbages any better than I did peat. I’d rather die fightin’ more Battle-Wights next summer than after two score years diggin’ in the dirt.”
“I can teach you some of the spear, but little of the bow,” Allystaire said.
“And what is it ya think I can’t fight? Battle-Wights? Armored horsemen? Footmen? I’ve already fought all of ‘em.”
“Once,” Allystaire said. “And that was with all the powers of the Goddess’s servants with you. You are asking me to lead you to something you are not prepared for. You are asking me to lead you to your death.”
“I’m askin’ you t’let me make the choice Renard made. Why won’t ya let me even try?”
Allystaire narrowed his eyes. “If I am to even consider this, Norbert, there are rules you will obey.”
Norbert crossed his arms and jutted his chin defiantly, expectantly.
“The moment, the very first moment that you complain, that you ask for a rest, that you say something is too difficult, or beyond you, or that you do not know how to do it, you are done.”
Norbert nodded, swallowing hard. “Aye.”
“I will find you someone to teach you more of the bow, which I cannot do,” Allystaire continued. “I have just the man in mind. If he agrees, and I believe he will, you will spend every waking turn he allows you learning from him. You will treat his orders and instruction as though they came from me.”
Norbert nodded again.
“If, if, mind,” Allystaire went on, extending a finger towards the lad, “I get so far as to teach you to ride, you will take care of the horse you ride as though it were the most precious thing in this world. If a mount suffers ill care from your hand—”
“I’m done. I know a bit of horses,” the boy said, shrugging. “S’the one thing the reavers taught me.”
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