The SoulNecklace Stories

by R. L. Stedman

  We practiced as we did for our kicks and punches, taking it in turn to hold the leather pad, while the other thumped away and tried to muscle the other backwards or kick their legs out. Will always managed the former, but I was better at the latter.

  Winter was fully upon us now, with howling squalls that threw lines of ice and sleet across the practice ground. Canvas walls had been fitted to protect us from the worst of the wind.

  I stopped thinking of Will as my teacher. We explored these new techniques together, working as friends. His hot breath on my cheek as we grappled, and the smile in his eyes as I tried to hold him down both infuriated and pleased me. I was not a plaything. I wanted him to see me as an equal.

  He was strong. When he had me in a hold, his arm firm about my waist, I could not break free.

  “Shall we dance, Princess?” he whispered, laughing.

  I twisted in his arms and for a moment, our faces were just inches apart. He sobered, suddenly silent, a glint in his eyes I’d not seen before. I smiled and smashed my head forward, tripping him neatly as he flinched back.

  Later, we moved to fighting each other, incorporating throws and kicks into the movements, sometimes even trying neck holds. Oh, the bruising! Plunging full face into the sand, thumped in the arm with a heavy stave, winded with an elbow in the gut. Even Will, with his speed and strength, became damaged.

  At the mid-morning bell I staggered back to my chamber to lie recumbent on my bed for fully half an hour. I don’t know how Will, who was expected to complete his normal guard training in the afternoon, managed.

  Sometimes I became distracted by his proximity, the warmth of his skin, the laughter in his eyes. Those moments were fatal; he would usually seize my lapse in concentration to dump me on the ground. I think, though, that he also had times like this, for when he had me in his arms, my own arms pinned to my side, he was surprisingly easy to throw.

  In a way we felt as though we were starting a journey of discovery. For no one, said Will, had tried this style of fighting before. The feint, drawing your enemy in, the twist, throwing him, the quick blow to the head or neck. It was the element of deceit that appealed to us, the concealed aggression.

  The exercise kept us warm and, in truth, it was just as well we’d started this more intense work as the weather grew colder. Sustaining this in the heat of summer, with the flies and sweat, would have been harder than coping with ice-cold fingers and toes.

  N’tombe continued watching from the edge of the practice ground. I felt pity for her, used as she was to a hotter clime. She came to resemble Nurse in her dress, muffled with cloths and swaddled in fur until all one could see of her was a nose protruding from a collection of garments.

  After a month we progressed to two staves, circling them in motion in front of us or beating the practice pad as though we were drummers in a play. As we trained, the seasons slowly changed; the trees budding, birds calling, but still we danced our long slow dance, a pas de deux of death. At night I dreamt of fighting, of clashing wood, of trembling arms, of the struggle to retain one’s position, to dodge the opponent.

  Spring arrived, much to N’tombe’s relief. As the world warmed, she began to reduce the amount of clothing, one layer at a time. Then came summer, and she began to smile again.

  With summer came my birthday. I was now fourteen, old enough for Mother to murmur of ladylike fashions. Since these generally meant lowered bodices, tight lacing and elaborate hairstyles, I tried not to listen.

  Mother began inviting me to her chambers, to eat small cakes with other women and listen to gossip – of maids and men and other such trivialities. I never knew what to say on these occasions, so to fill my mouth I ate pastries and small, perfectly formed cakes. Once, I nearly choked and had to be patted on the back until I could breathe again. I was not a social success, although doubtless I was a cause of much happy gossiping.

  * * *

  Summer passed, and with it Mother’s attempts at civilizing me. Or perhaps Daddy had a word with her, for as the weather grew cooler her invitations (or, more accurately, her commands) grew less frequent, and by the time the leaves began to change, they ceased entirely.

  During the autumn Will introduced other people to our practices, saying we needed to be sure we didn’t become too used to each other’s style. I would never normally meet these young men, save as silent escorts to functions; to me, guards were like armed furniture. But on the practice ground they had names and limbs and a strength that stunned. But not for long; Will and I were so proficient that by the end of winter we could hold off four of his fellow students.

  Sergeant Ryngell attended these sessions, watching with interest from the sidelines. Will told me that our new techniques were introduced into the guard practices.

  “Fine lad, that Will,” the Sergeant said to N’tombe, one April morning.

  “See,” I said. “You are appreciated.” I felt good. Between us we’d left four young men in groaning heaps on the arena.

  Sergeant Ryngell unwrapped himself from his cloak. “Let’s see how you go against a veteran.”

  “Me, sir?” Will’s voice was confused.

  “Not you. Her.” He nodded at me. A burly man, Sergeant Ryngell was over six feet tall. His face was twisted from an old scar. He was, Will told me, ruthless in sparring.

  “Me?” I tried to stop my voice quivering.

  “You need to fight someone who will fight properly,” the Sergeant said. “These young cockerels, all they see is a pretty girl.”

  “They’re holding back?” I tried not to sound indignant.

  “Of course.”

  I gripped my staves tightly. “All right,” I said, trying to strengthen my voice. “Let’s fight.”

  He grinned, stretching his scar. “Good girl.”

  The injured boys stopped their moaning, and stood up double-quick. Retreating to the edge of the practice arena, they called encouragement. “Come on, Lady! Stop him!”

  I stood alone on the sand as the wind whistled around my legs, and tried to empty my mind of fear.

  “Watch how he moves,” Will had said, when we’d started sparring with his fellows. Does he lead with his left leg? Is there any stiffness from an old injury? Watch him walk, watch him turn. How heavy is he? Most importantly: where is my advantage?

  The Sergeant took two staves from the box, sizing them in his hands, swinging them to feel their weight and balance. Moving fast, he ran toward me.

  Everything slowed as I danced toward him, sidestepping at the last moment, setting my foot between his legs, but he’d seen that move and stepped around it, bringing his staves up and around to my face. I blocked with the right, bringing my left up and around and we exchanged blows that shuddered up my arm, into my chest.

  But there. As I feinted backwards, stepping back on my left foot, he overreached. An opening! I reached forwards, up, under his guard, and hit him hard in the ribs. Jolted, he curled toward the pain and I thrust a knee up into his groin.

  “Ah!” he groaned.

  I threw a stave hold around his neck, holding his head tight in the vice, and threw him down onto one shoulder.

  “I could kick you in the head now,” I said, “or slit your throat. Which would you prefer?”

  He said nothing for a moment, looking up at me out of slits of eyes. Then, incredibly, he smiled, reaching up a hand for me to help him up.

  “All right, Princess,” he put a heavy arm around my shoulder. “You can fight.”

  The boys, who’d watched our performance in silence, now cheered, some throwing their caps high under the canvas roof. “Well done!”

  Panting, I bowed.

  Will flinched when the Sergeant clapped him on the shoulder. “You need to teach her to use blades,” he said. “That way she’ll be able to do some real damage.”

  “But not this week,” said N’tombe. “It would not be suitable if the Princess wore a black eye to the Maying.”

  * * *

  May Day: the first of
May, the beginning of spring. As usual, the bells rang in celebration and there was singing and dancing in honor of the Queen of the May. I sat in a golden chair at the end of the hall, accepting gifts and listening to hymns of praise, wishing I could be on the sand arena with a metal blade in my hand. Mother must have rigged the elections this year; the winner of the May Queen crown was usually a blonde simpered, someone who curved as a woman was supposed to curve and clung to her admirers like a vine.

  Wealthy young men swathed in gem-studded velvet invited me to dance. My skirt blew around me, a flaming band of color. I could feel Mother’s eyes burning my back as I twirled about the floor. I felt like a butterfly. Was she proud that she’d squeezed me into satin and pushed me onto a dance floor?

  The room was full of courtiers, young men from good families and young women with beautiful skin and fair complexions. This should be my world. Yet, even as I twirled until all I could see was brightness and gold, I kept feeling that it was wrong. This was not my place.

  “What’s wrong?” said my dancing partner.

  “I feel dizzy,” I put my hand to my head.

  He helped me over to the side of the dance floor, found me a chair and departed in search of water. I sat and watched the other butterflies dancing, fighting a memory: a dream of another dance floor, a boy crossing it to watch his sister change.

  The dancers were all young, for this was a young person’s dance; the girls elegant, dressed up like their mothers, the boys hesitant with stubble and awkward dignity. None moved with Will’s grace. Dancing with Will would be an interesting experience. Could we move in time to music instead of trying to kill each other?

  Where was Will? He would not be at the dance, of course. He was probably in the kitchens, setting the baking for the next day.

  “Try this,” My partner handed me a glass of something clear and sparkling.

  “Is it lemonade?”

  “Not quite,” his mouth twisted slightly. “But it’s good medicine for May Queens.”

  It smelt of yeast. “I don’t think I like it.”

  “Drink it faster then,” he said. “It’s medicine, remember.”

  So I gulped the glass of bubbling, fizzing liquid. He handed me another and I drank that too. “You know,” I said, squinting up at him, “I think you’re right. I do feel better.” My voice sounded strange.

  “Of course you do,” he said. “Come and dance.”

  The May Queen receives presents from her subjects. Token gifts of jewelry, trinkets of glass, flowers; the usual rubbish. N’tombe gave me something different. A leather training vest and two jagged-edged knives. My charming partner edged backwards as I waved them unsteadily about my head.

  * * *

  The magic effects of the medicine had faded by the next day. I woke to a tight band of pain across my forehead, a churning in my stomach.

  “I can’t fight today.” I had to whisper. Talking made my head hurt.

  N’tombe had a hard heart. “You’ll feel better after breakfast.”

  I winced and closed my eyes. How could she speak of food? “I think I ate something bad last night.”

  She chuckled. “I don’t think it was the food, Princess. You seemed to have a good time, though,” she added, in far too loud a voice. “We all enjoyed your singing.”

  “My singing?” I never sing. Because my voice sounds like a croaking dog.

  Apparently that hadn’t stopped me trying.

  “Don’t tell me anything,” I pleaded. “Please. I really don’t want to know.”

  “You want to be careful when you drink champagne.”

  Champagne? How embarrassing. How stupid. So naïve. Drinking wine, thinking it was medicine. Hopefully Will would never know.

  * * *

  “I hear you’ve taken up singing,” Will grinned.

  “I don’t think I can fight this morning. My head is so sore.”

  “I’m not surprised. From what I heard, you were roaring drunk.”

  “I wasn’t drunk,” I said indignantly. “Was I, N’tombe?”

  When she nodded, I groaned. “I’m never drinking again, then.” And both my heartless tutors laughed.

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” said Will.

  Couldn’t they see I was ill? “I’m not in the mood for this.”

  “There’s no such thing as a mood for fighting.” Will’s voice was far too loud. Why couldn’t he whisper? “You fight when you have to. Otherwise you might get killed.” He put one foot behind my leg and reached to grab my arms. Acting on reflex, I swayed sideways, ducking beneath his hold. “That’s better.”

  To teach him a lesson, I tried to throw him. A stupid move, given my state of health.

  “Happy May Day, Princess,” said Will.

  I lay on my sand and gazed up at his healthy, smiling face. “One day,” I warned, “I will get you back.”

  * * *

  My bath that afternoon was welcome. More heat! I needed to boil like a lobster; that way, maybe the bruising would go away. I turned the tap on full, and steam drifted through the slit in the wall. Outside it would look like a cloud escaping.

  A lattice screen kept me private, even when N’tombe pushed the door open. “I’m changing your lessons.”

  “Will they be any easier?”

  A pause. This was not encouraging.

  “They’ll be different. I’m getting someone to help me.”

  “Who?” Please, not the Sergeant. He’d dump me on my face in the sand, adding to my collection of bruises. Maybe he’d remark on my singing too.

  “You’ll find out,” said N’tombe.

  * * *

  Tufts of white cloud blew across the deep blue sky, so the courtyard alternated between warm sunlight and cool spring gusts. Nurse had been most indignant about me going out in wet hair, warning me of immediate death should I catch cold. But N’tombe had dragged me out, regardless. I felt a childish thrill, mixed with anxiety. It was never wise to defy Nurse.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll find out,” N’tombe said again.

  N’tombe insisted on cutting her skirts short, wearing them in jagged strips above her ankles. She’d just had her boots resoled and the new nails struck sparks with each step, an unsettling effect. She looked like a witch. Kitchen wenches with floury aprons, their hair tucked into puffed white caps, paused in their duties to watch her, ducking their heads as she walked by. Some of them crossed themselves.

  We passed through the inner gate. Once, long ago, I had run along the ramparts above, my father chasing me. We had laughed, both of us loving these stupid games. I missed the freedom of childhood; soon I’d have to start behaving like an adult.

  We stepped into the shade of the tower that stretched gray and chill like a dead man’s finger. Here in the innermost heart of the Castle there was no sound save the tapping of N’tombe’s boots, the patter of my shoes and the clicking of her beads as her braids swayed with the motion of her walk. Crows called from the ramparts above. I puffed, trying to keep up with her, and my breathing echoed from the stone walls so it felt like ghosts paced behind me.

  I didn’t recognize the guardsman who stood to attention at the base of the tower. Tall, he was dwarfed by the sheer structure that stretched, dark gray, above him. The tower was unlike the rest of the Castle, its gray stonework seemingly dressed without cracks or joins. How queer that I’d lived all my life in its shadow and never noticed its strangeness.

  There were no windows or decoration of any sort on the stonework, save the wooden door at the base. Bowing, the guard unlocked it with a heavy key, and pushed it open. It was hard to see his face behind his metal nose guard, but for a moment I thought he winked, as though he knew me. I could not recall seeing him before. I crowded close to N’tombe and, like a child, grabbed a fold of her dress.

  The only light in the hallway was the daylight from the doorway, partially blocked by the bulk of that enormous guard. I felt suddenly aware of my breathing and
the weight of the stone about me. We walked forward into the darkness, until finally, N’tombe stopped and I, shuffling behind like a lost spirit, banged into her.

  “There are many stairs,” she said. “I would like you to go first, please.”

  “Me?” My voice wobbled in the darkness.

  “The stairwell is sparsely lit, the stairs old and crumbling. Better you go in front. If you stumble I can catch you.”

  “What about you? You could trip too.”

  “Lady. Don’t argue.”

  There were four staircases, each spiraling up to a landing, where we paused to catch our breath before beginning on the next. Each staircase had one hundred steps. Four hundred steps in all. Silently I counted them, as I puffed my way up. Torches set into the walls burnt in gusty flame that made it hard to judge distances and I stumbled often.

  At the top was another door. N’tombe reached past me to open the iron latch. I stood on the threshold as it opened, dazzled by the bright sunlight that streamed in through four windows. They were open and the air was fresh. I would have been cold if not for the warmth from climbing all those stairs. But it wasn’t the temperature I noticed; it was the woman, sitting at the table.

  Rosa, my aunt. The Guardian. The fairy godmother, the girl from the forest. “You.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dreams Are All You See

  “Welcome.” Her hands, specked with brown spots, rested on the wooden table. When she smiled her teeth were yellow. And yet, and yet ... Looking at her, I saw warmth and charm and, was it happiness?

  I curtsied. “Madam.”

  Rosa glanced at N’tombe. “She sees already. You did the right thing. I wasn’t sure, she’s still so young.”

  “We were all young once, Rosa,” said N’tombe.