When he noticed the smiles on the faces of the two combatants, though, he realized what was really happening. Obviously, she was teaching them something of fencing. She must have believed there was some merit in instructing the youngsters in how to fight; he found he couldn't argue with the idea.
Rather than sheathe his sword, Caymus let it hang loosely in his fingers as he leaned against the courtyard wall. The attentions of the six children were riveted on the two combatants, so none of them had noticed him yet. He had to admit that he, too, was quite impressed by Aiella's opponent—he believed the young girl's name was Tesh—who was stepping quickly, backward and forward, in response to Aiella's movements.
Aiella herself was quite impressive also. Her arm moved quickly, and she didn't waver when she stepped or lunged, revealing a practiced, balanced form. He found himself suddenly captivated by her black hair, tied back with a simple kerchief, as it waved and spilled, about a half-second behind the rest of her.
There was a pause in the swordplay, a breath in the conversation, during which one of the boys noticed him standing there. The children of Flamehearth all knew about the Sleeping Giant, so it came as no surprise when the boy smiled and waved at him. After that, the dominoes fell, and the entire group, Aiella included, was suddenly looking in his direction.
"Have you been standing there long, Caymus?" Aiella said, lowering her sword and motioning for the girl to do the same. She was wearing her usual, unreadable demeanor.
"Just arrived," he replied, then he smiled at the group as a whole. "I didn't know Flamehearth had opened a fencing school."
The children giggled, and even Aiella let a small smile break through. "Children," she said, glancing around her, then pointing at Caymus, "what do you think about that sword Caymus has?"
"It's too big!" the children shouted, almost as one. The younger ones laughed with the proclamation.
Caymus raised his eyebrows. He was still carrying the shortsword he'd brought with him when he'd left for Terrek. A shortsword, Big? He raised the blade before his eyes to look it over. "You think so?" he said. "It's been working pretty well so far." He didn't say anything about the fact that his muscles sometimes screamed for a larger weapon when he swung this one.
Aiella stared at him a moment before answering. "Let us find out," she said. There was an air of playful menace in her voice, and Caymus tilted his head at her, curious at her meaning.
"Come," she said, motioning him over, "we will duel to see which is the greater blade." She waved her arm around her. "Children, stand against the wall please, and give us some room."
Caymus didn't step forward, though. He wasn't convinced that what she was proposing was a good idea. He'd sparred with Rill on several occasions, so he felt comfortable with the idea of it, but ever since he'd been young, he'd always been larger than anybody else and had learned, sometimes the hard way, to be on constant guard so as not to hurt people accidentally. He certainly didn't want to hurt Aiella. "Are you sure about this?" he said.
She smiled a suddenly wicked smile at him. "Do not worry, sir," she said, "I will not be too hard on you."
He wasn't sure how he felt about being called 'sir', especially by her, but the thought was fleeting.
"Do it, Giant!" a few of the children yelled. "Duel!" said others. Caymus stared at the bloodthirsty group in some disbelief, then looked back at Aiella. She was standing there with her hand on her hip and an eyebrow cocked at him, daring him to accept her challenge.
He shrugged his shield and a satchel's worth of belongings off his shoulders and placed them on the ground. "All right," he said, cautiously, as he stepped forward. Briefly, he wondered if Be'Var had returned to Flamehearth yet. If something went wrong, Aiella might require his healer's arts.
The two duelists stood nearly three yards apart, facing each other. Aiella brought her rapier up, signaling her readiness, and Caymus did the same. He still wasn't certain he should be doing this, but when he met her eyes, he saw an intensity there, a deep concentration that made him think maybe he'd misjudged the odds in this fight.
In an instant, she was moving, and he knew he hadn't been ready for it. He parried a couple of her swings, barely getting his blade in the way of hers before it struck home. When he moved to make a thrust of his own, though, he suddenly found she had her rapier at his throat.
She grinned at him. "Again?"
He nodded. He wasn't sure what had just happened, but he wanted to see if she got past his guard a second time.
The two of them backed off, reset, and signaled readiness. Again, within moments, Caymus found himself on the defense, narrowly deflecting her quick-moving blade with his. He managed to get a swing in this time, but it was parried and, in the next instant, the rapier was at his throat a second time.
"Again?"
Caymus glanced around at the children before he nodded. Each of them was grinning at him.
Time and again, they reset their positions, and time and again, Caymus found a narrow blade at his neck. Each time, as the children gasped, he looked up and found Aiella's dark eyes grinning at him. "Again?"
After the seventh or eighth bout—he wasn't sure which—he found himself becoming aware of his emotions, feeling a rising sense of his own state of mind. A large part of him was becoming frustrated and angry at his constant failure and her mocking smiles. Another part of him, however, was intrigued, curious about what kept happening, how she was beating him, and what other tricks this girl might have in store.
He found himself wondering how long she'd trained, how many years she must have spent studying fencing in her youth.
Again, he stood with his sword out to his side, a thin length of steel against his jugular. Aiella must have been on her toes, because her face felt like it was mere inches from his. Her dark eyes narrowed. "Again?"
"Miss Aiella?"
The two of them turned to see a man standing in the same doorway Caymus had entered through, his head down and his hands behind his back. Caymus recognized the man: he was the Creveyan scout whose memories Brocke had played out in a pool of water less than an hour ago.
As quickly as she'd advanced on him, Aiella pulled away and sheathed her blade. "Yes, Keegan," she said, her voice a monument to control, "what is it?"
Caymus quietly placed his own sword into its sheath as the scout approached Aiella and handed her a folded, sealed, piece of paper. After turning it once in her hands, Aiella broke the seal, unfolded the paper, and spent some time reading. He didn't quite know what to do with himself in the silence, and he considered picking up his gear and going to his room, but the note must have been very short, as Aiella looked up again within moments.
"Thank you, Keegan," she said, giving the piece of paper back. "Tell him I will be there shortly?"
Keegan nodded and bowed very slightly. "I will, Miss Aiella," he said, then turned and quietly walked away.
After he was gone, Aiella turned in a circle, addressing the children, who were still watching the exchange with great anticipation. "No more lessons today, children," she said to them. The children collectively voiced their disappointment, but they wasted no time in running back into the building, presumably to start up little games of their own.
Caymus walked back to his shield and satchel, picked them up, and secured them over his shoulders again. Aiella followed him. "You are quick," she said.
Caymus looked back at her in surprise. "Not quick enough, it seems," he said. "You got past my guard every time. I don't know how you did that."
She looked away with a distant smile. "I began learning this weapon," she touched the rapier on her hip, "when I was four years old. If I were not quick, I would be a disappointment." She looked back to Caymus, a curious expression in her eyes. "You must not try to be quicker than me," she said.
Caymus wasn't sure what she meant by that. "I'm sorry?"
She seemed to smile in spite of herself. "I," she placed a hand against her chest, "am quick. Many people who have studied the rapi
er as long as I have are quick. It is my strength, my advantage." A strand of curly hair fell in her face, which she pulled back and tucked into her kerchief. "Your strength," she continued, pointing at him, "is not in quickness, but in power. You must not try to be as quick as me."
"Ah," he said, "you mean I should be playing to my strength, rather than trying to match your speed?"
She nodded with a small smile. "One who wields a quick weapon, a narrow blade," she said, "must often land many strikes in order to best her opponent. So long as you protect your face, neck, and heart," she pointed to all three places on him, "you are safe enough. But my blade is small and light. If a strong opponent were to bring down his weapon down with all his might, there would be little a quick person could do to stop the blade." She held up a finger. "A powerful person needs only one strike."
"Of course," Caymus said, after thinking about it, "a quick person might just dodge out of the way and quickly stab me back."
She smiled. It was the first genuinely pleased smile he could remember ever seeing from her. "That is possible, also," she said.
Caymus realized he was enjoying himself, enjoying this simple moment. He'd had some time traveling with Milo in the last two days, of course, but they had spent so much time rushing. This was the first time, since waking up in a candlelit room, that he'd had the chance to just appreciate the company of another human being. He was surprised to discover it was this girl, who had been so cold to him when they'd first met, that was allowing him such a reprieve from the seriousness of the world. "Thank you for the lesson, Aiella," he said.
She nodded, then the smile vanished and she turned to look to the North. "I must return to the Keep," she said, then she turned back to him. "Will you walk with me?"
Caymus, surprised, didn't see any reason why he shouldn't. "Give me a moment to put my things away?" he said.
"Of course."
Within a few minutes, Caymus had put his bag and his shield—everything except his shortsword—on the bed in his room, and the two of them were walking up the street, back in the direction from which Caymus had just come.
The streets seemed even quieter, now. The sun was beginning to disappear behind some of the houses and merchant buildings, and the lamplighters were starting their rounds. Boys of about nine or ten carried long, thin torches, setting aglow the various lamps and lanterns that dotted the roads of Kepren. The sun was taking its warmth with it as it vanished, and a chill was forming around them. Caymus hadn't noticed it before, but winter had started while his body had slept. He wondered why it wasn't colder.
"You must be becoming an important man," Aiella said as they walked, "if you are being invited to the prince's meetings." Caymus couldn't tell if she was mocking him or genuinely inquiring about his station.
"It was just the one meeting," he said, shrugging, "and I'm not sure why I was invited. I think Master Be'Var must have told the prince that I would be useful."
She turned to glance at him. "And were you?"
Caymus waggled his head. He thought about the moment when the prince had asked whether the Rill's sludge could burn the krealites. Master Be'Var had actually deferred to him. He hadn't thought about it at that time, but he realized now that the moment had been a milestone, a turning point in his life. "I suppose I was," he said.
"Good," she said, hugging herself against the cold. "Garrin, then, is fortunate to have your assistance."
Caymus shook his head in slight disbelief at hearing someone say that a prince, the commander of an entire army, was lucky to have his help. "I think it might be the other way around," he said. "I didn't know what a good leader he was until today."
"Garrin is a good leader," she said. Her voice had taken on a more subdued, less brash tone than was usual. "I wish him not but happiness."
Caymus thought it an odd thing to say. He didn't mention the fact, but she must have picked up on his confusion. "My father," she said, "brought me here, to Kepren, so that he could court me," she said. She looked at Caymus pointedly. "You were not aware of this?"
Caymus shook his head. "I wasn't." He'd picked up that there might be something more than friendship between the two of them, and Be'Var had alluded to a sort of understanding between the prince and the ambassador's daughter, but he'd not speculated on the details.
She faced forward again. Caymus looked over and saw an unusually distant look on her face. She suddenly seemed vulnerable, a fact that surprised him more than had her rapier at his neck. "He is a good man," she said, "a strong warrior, and a good leader, as you say, but I have no wish to be married into royalty, especially royalty of a nation other than my own."
They walked along in silence for a time. Caymus didn't know what to say, so he tried to think of something else to talk about. "I saw the king today," he said. "Do you know what's wrong with him?"
Instantly, the vulnerable look faded away, and Aiella shrugged into a deep sigh. "I have been told I should not speak of it," she said, "but it is probably best for you to know." She looked around them, checking for eavesdroppers. There were barely half a dozen people to be seen, and none of them seemed interested in what the two of them were talking about.
"The king's mind is gone," she said, turning to Caymus as though to make sure she had his attention. "From what I have been told, his condition began to deteriorate at the death of his wife, almost ten years ago." She stared at the ground as she continued. "I feel sorry for the man, to lose the person most important to him, when he spent most of his life attending to the actions of his father."
"The king's father?" Caymus asked. "What do you mean?"
She turned and raised an eyebrow at him. "You are Tebrian, are you not?"
Caymus shrugged. "I suppose I am, though the place where I grew up is on the borders of Tebria, a little town called Woodsea, about a dozen miles north of Krin’s Point. We never heard much news from Kepren, nor really had much use for it."
Aiella seemed astonished at hearing this, but continued, regardless. "The old king—the current king's father—made constant war with the nation of Mael'vek." She regarded Caymus again. "You know of Mael'vek, yes?"
"Yes," Caymus groaned. "I'm not that out of touch."
She nodded in satisfaction. "The old king brought his wife, the queen, with him on every campaign, and so his son, King Lysandus, was born in a tent during a battle."
"The king was born on a battlefield?" Caymus's eyes widened at the idea.
"He was," she replied. "More to the point, he was born on Mael'vekian soil, for which reason the emperor of Mael'vek believes that King Lysandus is a citizen of his empire, and so Tebria can be claimed as a part of Mael'vek."
Caymus frowned at the idea. "That seems like a bit of a stretch to me."
"It is," Aiella replied, "but it is excuse enough for the wars that Mael'vek has launched against Tebria. It is the reason that they pushed into Laivus and razed the city. It is why the Grass District had need to be built and why the king has spent most of his life defending against an empire that believes him to be subject to its emperor."
Caymus was baffled by the logic of kings and emperors, and amazed at the causality of events, that an accident of birth had meant that the current king had spent most of his life defending his kingdom from the enemies of his father.
"I wonder what this king is leaving behind for Prince Garrin to deal with," Caymus idly wondered.
"It seems that King Garrin will have new enemies to face," Aiella said. It was a small sound that seemed to be mostly for herself. She frowned. "I wonder if he will wish me to see him before he leaves tonight."
Caymus hadn't realized how quickly they'd moved through the city. He merely noticed the presence of someone else in front of him and looked up to find himself confronted by the soldiers of the Keep. He smiled to himself. The last time he'd lost his awareness of time, he'd found himself consumed in flames. This had been an altogether more pleasant experience.
Aiella turned to him with a face which was as unreada
ble as it ever was. "I must assist with some of the preparations tonight," she said, "and I'm sure you have duties to attend to as well."
Caymus wasn't sure about any actual duties of his own, but he would be glad to finally get a chance to wash the last few days' travel from his skin. He returned the smile and nodded. "I will see you another time then," he said, "Miss Aiella."
"Ha!" she said, closing her eyes momentarily. When she opened them again, she wore a faint smile. "Please do not call me 'Miss' again."
Caymus was particularly surprised when she stepped forward and raised her arm, placing the palm of her hand gently against his cheek. "I wish you luck in the coming days, Caymus of the Conflagration," she said. Before he could respond, she had stepped through the large, oak door and was gone, leaving two guards, who seemed quite curious about the exchange, in her wake.
Caymus could only shrug, mirroring their surprise, before he turned to leave.
As he walked back through the streets of Kepren, the stone and brick of the city now lit more by lamplight than by sunlight, he wondered about this chance encounter. Aiella's actions were a far cry from those of the woman he'd met when he'd first come to Kepren. He wondered what had changed. He also wondered how much of that change had to do with her and how much with him.
When he finally returned to his room, some time later, he spent some time repacking his belongings, making sure he was ready to travel again. Aiella had let slip an important bit of information during their talk; Caymus wasn't sure if she had done so intentionally or not.
As he sat on his bed in the same small room where he'd been so long asleep, he spent some time sharpening a few of the nicks out of his sword. When he felt a presence in the room, he looked up and saw the girl Aiella had been fencing with, standing in his doorway.
He gave her a friendly smile. "It's Tesh, isn't it?"
The girl nodded, her bright blue eyes following the movement of his whetstone. He couldn't quite judge her age, but figured she was a little older than ten.
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