Arcanum

by Simon Morden

  “This,” he said, “is also a sword.”

  The men laughed, and Sophia’s heart inexplicably soared.

  Left-handed, he rotated on his heel and landed a blow across the neck of the dummy that left the blade embedded where the Idun’s apple would be. Felix let go, and the hilt hung suspended in the air. He brushed off fragments of willow from his tunic.

  “Respect your weapons, gentlemen. I’m not going to promise to turn you into master swordsmen, but today you will go away with a better idea of how not to get yourselves killed. If you come back tomorrow, we’ll practise the other part. Spread out so that you’re two lengths apart but can still see me.”

  They complied, and in good humour. Felix started slowly, almost ponderously. His slight frame didn’t seem made to make such exaggerated shapes. It was almost like dancing: raising the blade point-down in front of the body on the step back, holding it horizontally at waist-level on the step forward.

  Repetition seemed to be the key, training the body to adopt the most rudimentary of guards. He moved, they copied. Ragged at first, uncertain, timid even. Then more confident, as if they could see the point of it.

  She got up from her seat and walked slowly around the rear of the group, where she stood watching the strain and heft of their backs as they blocked, lowered, and blocked again.

  She picked up a spare sword from the trestle where they’d been displayed. It was similar to the one she’d borrowed from the Town Hall, long with a slight widening before the tip. It fitted neatly in her hand, and balanced well.

  The next time the men slid and held, she did too, just the foot movements. It was a dance: she was poised and steady, she was already good at this.

  Felix was speeding up. Each form he made was less discrete and more fluid, seamlessly folding from one to another and back. She tried following, and found it easy, even when Felix decided to go faster still.

  He stopped, and stood in front of Rabbi Cohen, who was still using the Sword of Carinthia. He held out his sword, drew it back, and aimed a lazy swing at the rabbi’s guts.

  Metal clanged against metal, eliciting a grunt of effort from the man. Then Felix whipped around and went for the reverse blow. Cohen instinctively raised his blade and another clang echoed around the courtyard.

  “Good,” said Felix. He moved on to the next man and did the same thing.

  Each man got his turn, until there was only one left, and she wasn’t a man.

  “My lord,” she said.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked. “It’s not usual…”

  “I know.” She nodded. “All the same, I’d rather do this properly than not.”

  He gave her no warning, and didn’t pull his blow. She parried at once; her hand buzzed with the impact and she grunted with surprise, but there was no time to rest or consider how it felt. He stepped back, she stepped forward, and he brought the sword across her again.

  Step back, raise blade, bang.

  “My lady,” he said, “always with the flat. Always. And with the half of the blade below the hilt if you can.” He walked back to the front. “Ride the blow. Don’t be rigid. The best way to avoid being hit is not to be in the way. Failing that, deflect the blow, move with it, make it safe.”

  He turned and faced them again. “Blows from above. Raise your sword over your heads, blade horizontal. Brace it halfway with your other hand on the flat. I can’t do that bit, but you can.”

  He put his back to them. “Like this.” He bent his knee and braced his other foot against the ground, lowering his head and bringing the sword over it. “One movement.”

  Felix straightened again, and then bent. The others mimicked him, and so did Sophia. The seams on her sleeves were tight, and resisted her raising her arms. Courtly dresses weren’t made for sword fighting; not really a surprise. But she wasn’t going to hold back if it meant not completing her guard. If the stitching went, so be it.

  They went through the same procedure, starting slowly and gradually building up speed until it became second nature.

  He attacked them all. His pupils, eager and attentive, all blocked Felix’s overhead swing. He came to Sophia again, and she readied herself.

  “My lord.”

  He swung at her. But not at her head. At her side. She leapt back, hand raised high, sword-point dipping down. Felix’s edge scraped up as far as her hilt. She stepped forward, levelling her blade and forcing his down. Her opponent back-handed a blow up and over, towards her neck. She brought her hands high, just as she’d been taught, and her arms shuddered with the effort.

  Felix let his sword rest on hers. “Too stiff, my lady. Your elbows should be bent, not locked.”

  She pushed his arm away and snapped, “Are you actually trying to kill me?”

  Felix looked shocked, then mortified. “No, Sophia, no. I wouldn’t. I’m trying to show you what it’s like.”

  “Then why is it that you’re tapping at their swords but hammering away at mine?” She was acutely aware of her sudden anger, of the way her fingers flexed against the corded sword grip. That she could reach out and smack this child with either her open palm or her filled fist. “My lord.”

  “Because you’re already better than they are, Sophia.” He lowered his sword, resting it point-down on the ground. He was disappointed, not just in her, but in himself. “I should find someone else to teach you.”

  There was no one else, and she was being as petulant as he was. No one had made her do this. She could choose to put her weapon down and never pick it up again, or stay and see this out.

  Everyone was watching her, to see what she did. And, no doubt, what she did would be gossiped about in those beer cellars that still had some beer left.

  “Elbows bent,” she said, raising her blade. “Then we’ll do it again until I get it right.”

  His next blow was soft. It didn’t trouble her, and she narrowed her eyes.

  “Harder. How else am I going to learn?”

  “But—”

  “Harder.”

  He complied, leaning away from his swinging arm. His sword bounced off as she timed her parry to actively block, not just passively receive.

  “Better,” she said.

  He smiled uncertainly at her, and she brushed his sword-arm away with hers. She looked down, and saw that with a little extra effort she could pin the tip of Felix’s blade against the ground with her boot.

  Felix was watching the direction of her gaze. He danced back. “My lady.”

  The men looked uncomfortable. Good. Let them realise that Sophia Morgenstern wasn’t content to sit in the solar practising her needlework. Let them see their prince’s consort with a sword in her hand and her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat. She was no blonde Valkyrie, but if they remembered her like this rather than as an outsider first, a Jew, then a little suffering was nothing.

  Sophia straightened up. She made certain that she didn’t smile, didn’t give anything away. “Your students are waiting, my lord.”

  She could tell that he didn’t know how to take that. As he walked back to his place again, he kept on looking behind him. He took his stance at the front, taking the first position, holding it until everyone had copied him.

  Sophia put her arm up, angled the blade down.

  Felix moved into the overhead block, then back. Two fluid movements faster than ever before, each with their own step.

  It was simple. Her muscles followed her instructions perfectly. No need to get over-confident, either. Not every blow was going to come from the side or above: there were lunges to think about, and low blows. And using a shield, and a spear, and possibly doing all those things on horseback.

  He didn’t come around again to see if they’d mastered their twin parries. The sun slipped below both the fortress ramparts and the surrounding mountains, and the courtyard grew gloomy.

  It was enough for one day. Her sword-arm ached dully by the time she placed it back on the table, and she squeezed her muscles to try a
nd get them working again. Felix remembered to relieve Cohen of his sword before he made off with it, and the men trooped out, with good-natured banter and bragging.

  Now Felix was in pain. He gingerly sheathed his sword at his belt and dragged his feet over to Sophia. His left hand was feeling under his shirt at his clavicle, trying to tell if the bones had become unravelled by his exertions.

  “Am I allowed to say I told you so?” she said.

  “Who else would get away with it?” His discomfort made him irritable. Or perhaps he was grumpy because of her treatment of him.

  “You could have left it for another week. We might have been able to have some practice-swords made.”

  “We can’t afford to waste a week. So we train now, with real swords.” He allowed her to push his hand away and manipulate his shoulder for herself. “Did I really hurt you?”

  “You surprised me. I don’t know why.” His young bones had set straight, with only a small knot to show for it. “If I’m going to learn how to defend myself properly, I shouldn’t have gone into it thinking I was just playing.”

  He looked up at her. “And were you? Playing?”

  “To start with. I was wrong, and you were right.” She pulled his shirt closed. “You need to put your sling back on for the rest of the evening. I can understand why you didn’t want to wear it in front of everyone, but they’re not watching now.”

  Felix nodded meekly.

  “Come, my lord. Let’s see if the kitchens have managed to scratch something together.” She placed her hand in the small of his back and guided him over to the keep.

  “Sophia? Are people going hungry?”

  “Not yet. Food is getting more expensive the more scarce it gets. The supplies aren’t coming into town. It’s more difficult to bring them to market now, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”

  “So where’s all the food?”

  “It’s still at the farms. They’re keeping hold of it because they don’t have the confidence to send it here.” She reached ahead of him and hauled open the wooden door. “They’re still waiting for the sky to fall.”

  “And the water?” he asked.

  “They’ve been digging for over a week now under the instruction of Master Prauss. It has to come soon.” That one problem had become the symbol of all their problems. It made life difficult for everyone, so difficult that some had considered packing up and leaving for elsewhere. “Is it true that there are caves full of machines below the fortress?”

  “That’s what Master Thaler says. He also says there are stairs up, but I’ve never found the top of them.” He leant against the doorway. “I should have. There wasn’t much to do but poke around in dark corners, when I wasn’t being schooled by the signore.”

  If her shibboleth was the loss of the mikveh, his was the betrayal by his sword-master. He couldn’t deny Peter Büber’s gloss on events and pretend that Eckhardt had somehow tricked Allegretti.

  “Someone’s going to have to go down the tunnel and up through whichever blocked door it goes to.” She shrugged. “It’s not so important as the other things.”

  “Someone we can trust. These walls don’t need a back door.” Felix closed his eyes and rested his head against the stonework. “My father never had days like this. He never trained troops, made laws, hired spies or locked up Bavarians.”

  “He didn’t know, Felix. If he had, he would have done something.”

  “You think? You didn’t see him at the end: he didn’t believe it was happening, so he just did what we’d always done.”

  “I know you miss him,” said Sophia.

  “I don’t, though. I don’t miss him at all. If he was here now, all I’d be doing is shouting at him for getting everything so wrong and then leaving me with all this mess. He spent his life riding and hawking and hunting. Sometimes he had to dress up and play at princes, but he wasn’t serious about it.” Felix sighed. “I’ve done more in a month that he did his whole reign.”

  “I’m sorry.” What did she really feel for this boy, this man, this prince? They needed each other for the political advantage it gave them: he’d saved her and she’d saved him, and they went on saving each other every day. He needed someone to mother him, even though she had no experience of that. She needed someone to rescue her from being an outsider in her own community.

  If they both found meaning in that, expedient as it was, was that so bad? Only good had come out of it so far.

  “And tomorrow,” she said, “we do it all again. Except by tomorrow, the workmen at the library will have been paid, and they’ll want to buy food, and the market traders will send out to the farms, and the carts will start arriving again, even if they are pushed by hand.”

  “Horses. We need horses. And the tack that goes with them. And carts designed to be pulled by them.”

  “Donkeys do just as well. And you can use cows. Bullocks. We use them to pull our carts and ploughs. We’ll teach you how.” She stood bolt upright. “The Jews need to show the German farmers how to live a non-magical life.”

  “Your market in Scale Place—”

  “Is as well-stocked as it usually is. Lots of Germans buying there, too. Most of us have relatives who live on the land. They can lend their plough teams out. Work out a breeding programme for livestock. Make patterns for yokes.” Ah, the irony. They were all going to be Jews from now on. “Threshing and grinding. Everything.”

  Felix rubbed at his face, his exhaustion showing. “Can we do this? Can we really make things work?”

  “No reason why not. We’ve been living like this for thousands of years. We’re still here, and not just surviving, but thriving. Especially here in Carinthia.” She reached out and brushed at his hair, which had become as unruly as hers. Next time, she’d tie hers up, or cover it like a respectable Jewish wife should. “The shtetls and dorfs have grown, both from children being born and Jews coming from other palatinates. I’ll take you Halstadt. I’ve an aunt there.”

  “That’s good,” he said, and caught her finger in his own, dragging it down. He added with a mumble: “That wasn’t what I meant, though.”

  “Oh,” she said. “You can always change your mind. Now, or later. You’re the prince: you can do more or less what you want.”

  “People will say I’m just using you to keep the Jews loyal.”

  “Then the people would be very wrong, Felix. My being here isn’t popular with anyone. It might become acceptable, when they take the time to think it through, but for the moment, no. They won’t be saying that at all.” She hooked her finger to keep contact. “If you were older, then…”

  “Would that make a difference?”

  “Probably not.” She shrugged. “Your … years make things more complicated, but it’s not the cause.”

  He grew quiet, and she jiggled his hand.

  “Why don’t we find our supper, and see what tomorrow brings?”

  Felix nodded, and allowed himself to be led away.

  62

  It was fated that they arrived at their destination just after the sun’s last red line shimmered on the far distant horizon. Moments before, the wall of rock that was Farduzes had been lit like a beacon fire. Now it was shrouded and silent, and the path they were following slid away into uncertainty.

  “Fuck,” said Büber. It was Heavyhammer’s fault. The miserable bastard had been dragging his still-stumpy legs for the last five miles, while retaining enough breath to spout dreary kennings about rocks more or less at will. Now they had to pick their way down to the entrance in the twilight, a descent that would have been bad enough when they could have seen what they were doing.

  “It isn’t far, human.” Heavyhammer walked a little way down what appeared to be an entirely contextless ledge and stopped.

  “You can’t see in the dark like you used to,” muttered Büber. “You don’t know the way any more than I do, and when the stars start to come out, you’re going to curl into a ball and start rocking backwards and forwards.”
He looked around. The only safe way down the mountain was to back up and wait until morning. There wasn’t enough room for his horse to turn around, but he could reverse it up with careful coaxing.

  The drop in front of them wasn’t sheer, but it was loose scree almost all the way down to the valley floor. Above them loomed sharp, blocky outcrops; whether their shapes were natural or deliberately carved, it was impossible to tell.“If you’d just admitted we were lost, then we could have made camp somewhere other than halfway up a cliff.” Büber patted his horse on the muzzle and shortened the reins to a stub. “Now we have to do something dangerous and stupid because of you.”

  And better do it now than wait any longer. He stood in front of the horse and, holding its head, started to nudge it backwards up the path. It resisted, quite understandably, trying to gain purchase on the joints in the rock. Büber was insistent, however, and eventually it had little choice but to move. It took a few steps, decided that was enough, and tried to dig its hooves in again.

  “Come on. A little more.” He eased the beast back. “I’m not carrying you.”

  He reached a place where there was enough room – just – to lead the horse around in a circle. Then he realised that Heavyhammer had gone, and there was no way the dwarf could have got past him.

  “Ah, fuck.”

  He completed the manoeuvre anyway and climbed up to where he knew the path cut across a broad, flat shoulder of rock. So, some or all of the dwarf’s laggardness had been an act, designed to strand Büber out here, on top of the mountain, in the dark and the cold, while he went on, into the city to do whatever it was that lying, cheating dwarves did.

  The stories told about them were clear enough, and the moral obvious. And Büber was perhaps one of the few people who could throw a dwarf further than he wanted to trust one.

  He got some food out of his saddlebags, but there was nothing for the horse, and he felt like a bastard for having dragged it all that way without even the sniff of a bale of hay while he gnawed on the end of a spear of dried meat.