“There’s a game…”
* * *
The next morning, she made her way down to the garden well before dawn. The sky was clear, and the moon hung large and bright above her, flooding the courtyard with soft silvery light.
She sat on the edge of the fountain, waiting for Marcom to arrive, and watched the moonlight as it reflected off the water that spewed from the gash in the mermaid’s throat.
The first time she’d seen that sculpture lying at the bottom of the shallow base of the fountain, she’d found it horrifying. Now, though, it struck her as simply sad. The mermaid looked like she’d taken her own life after losing her lover, perhaps. An aquatic Juliet, maybe. What she had taken as the mermaid’s mouth stretched wide in a scream could be her calling out to her lost love with her dying breath.
A noise broke into her reverie, and she turned to see the dark shape of Marcom making his way through the garden toward her. The sound of his boot heels on the stones seemed very loud in the early morning stillness.
“Mornin’,” he grunted as he stooped and slid a large pack from his shoulder and dropped it with a jangle beside the fountain. “Wasn’t sure you’d come.”
The truth was, Emily hadn’t been sure she’d come, either. Marcom was an intimidating sort of man, and after her encounter with the man who’d fetched them from the sailors, she hadn’t been sure that meeting someone she didn’t know at four in the morning was a smart thing to do.
But the lure of the physical activity coupled with the mischievous smile Marcom had flashed the day before had ultimately persuaded Emily to creep her way through the sleeping tower and into the garden.
“What is all that?” she asked, eyeing the pack curiously. It seemed too big to have only a couple of bows and a target in it.
“Well, now,” Marcom said, pulling open the pack and reaching inside. “I got to thinkin’ after our chance meetin’ yesterday, and I thought to myself, ‘Someone who can shoot a bow like that might know a thing or two about some other stuff too.’ And so I decided to bring out a few things. But we’ll start with the bows.”
He pulled out the same target he’d had the day before and leaned it against the fountain.
“Three rounds,” he said, pulling out a pair of smaller bows and handing one to Emily. “First round is shootin’. We’ll each get six arrows. Yours are blue, see? Mine are red.” He tapped the feathers that adorned the end of each bunch. He handed hers over, and they walked together a few yards down one of the paths. He turned to face the target and motioned for her to stand beside him.
“On the count of three, we’ll both start shootin’ as fast as we can. Whichever of us lands the most arrows that would be killin’ blows on yonder knight wins the round. Agreed?”
“And what does the winner get at the end of the three rounds?” Emily asked, tilting her head back to look up into his lined and weatherbeaten face.
“If you win, I’ll give you another holder.”
“And if you win?” she pressed.
“If I win, you have to meet me back out here again tomorrow for a rematch.”
Emily grinned at him. She liked Marcom, despite his gruff manner and grotesque appearance. More than anyone else she’d met here, he seemed to have a sense of humor.
“All right,” she said, and she turned to face the target.
Marcom adjusted his stance and lined up the six arrows in his belt. Emily copied him.
“Well now, aren’t you a one,” he grunted, but Emily could see his mouth twitching into a smile beneath his beard. “Already stealin’ my technique, and we ain’t even started yet.”
She ignored him and nocked an arrow into her bow, pulling back a little on the string to test its weight. Marcom followed suit.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
“One…two…three!”
The arrows flew through the air in a veritable hailstorm. As each left her bow, she reached for the next before the first found its mark. All twelve arrows were spent in seconds.
They looked at one another, and she could tell he was impressed.
“C’mon,” he said gruffly. “Let’s see who won that round. Not light enough to tell the colors apart from here.”
Together, they made their way over to the target and stood looking down at it, he in mute astonishment, and she in surprised delight.
Two arrows stuck out of the target, one on each side of the knight’s head. One was red, the other blue.
Two more jutted from the knight’s eyes, and these were likewise red and blue.
A series of others were scattered about the knight’s outline, but had missed him entirely.
A blue arrow protruded from the knight’s breast, just where his heart would be. Flanking it on either side, were the remains of a red one that had clearly hit the same spot and been cleaved in two by the blue one.
“That looks like a draw to me,” Emily said, grinning.
Marcom grumbled for a moment, glowering at the target before them. Then his face cleared.
“It very well is not a draw,” he said. “My arrow clearly hit that spot first, or yours wouldn’t have been able to split it. So I win this round.”
Emily scowled, staring at the target. She wanted to argue, but he had a point, and she had no comeback ready.
Marcom pulled the arrows out of what was left of the mangled knight’s anatomy and picked up the target and laid it out of the way.
“All right,” Emily said crossly. “What’s next?”
Marcom began digging around in his pack again, and came up with six stuffed owls. They looked old and battered, many of their feathers broken and bent at odd angles.
He lined them up along the edge of the fountain, then withdrew a slingshot and half a dozen small metal balls.
“Slingshot,” he said and marched back down the path. Emily followed him. Unlike archery, she’d never used a slingshot in her life. She barely knew how they worked, but she didn’t want to admit it.
Marcom turned to face the fountain. “Yours will be the first, third, and fifth owls. Mine are the second, fourth, and sixth. The idea is to knock down yours without knocking down mine. We’ll take turns, one by one. Do you want the first shot, or shall I take it?”
Emily considered. This was not entirely unlike a hockey shootout. Usually, in hockey, the home team got the choice whether to shoot or defend first, and nearly always chose to shoot first. In this case, though, the advantage seemed to be with the person who shot last, since there would presumably be no other owls left to accidentally take down with the final shot.
“I’ll shoot second,” she said. Marcom shrugged and then knelt on the ground beside her.
She watched him closely, hoping to glean the basics of using the slingshot and not display her ignorance.
He dropped one of the balls into the cup, balanced the slingshot on his knee, pulled back on the sling, and took aim.
Emily kept her eyes on the ball rather than on the owls as he let go and sent the ball hurtling across the garden. It thudded into the owl at the far right, which tottered for a moment before falling over backward into the fountain with a splash.
“That’s one for me,” Marcom said and offered her the slingshot.
Emily took it with some trepidation, positioned herself as he had, and held out her hand for a ball. He slapped one into her palm, and she dropped it into the cup.
With a show of more confidence than she felt, she mimicked everything she’d seen him do, then tried to remember the way the ball had arced through the air. It wouldn’t travel in a straight line.
She calculated as best she could, tugging on the sling to test its strength. At last she thought she was ready.
She pulled back the sling, checked her aim one last time, and let go.
The ball soared through the air, moonlight glinting off of its smooth surface as it spun. It hit the owl on the far left of the row, just a little to the right of center. The bird rotated to the right, almost bring
ing down its neighbor, then toppled over into the fountain.
Relieved, Emily got to her feet and offered Marcom back the slingshot. “And that’s one for me.”
The big man looked stunned. He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head and wordlessly took the slingshot back.
On his second shot, he hit the owl that was now on the far left squarely, sending it cleanly off the edge of the fountain to join its brothers in the water.
Emily’s second shot was not as clean. The ball struck the stone of the fountain’s edge and skipped upward, hitting her owl in the face and breaking off the tip of its beak. The owl fell over to its left and performed a strange kind of spin on its back, looking like a break dancer from one of the old 1980s music videos Casey’s mom watched incessantly, then tumbled at last into the fountain with the rest.
“Damn lucky shot,” Marcom growled, but she could tell he was more amused than annoyed.
Marcom’s last ball hit true, and his final owl joined the rest so neatly that it almost seemed to simply vanish from the edge of the fountain.
Emily was feeling confident with the slingshot now, and she took it from him, kneeling and taking aim as she had before.
As her fingers let go, she realized immediately that she’d miscalculated. This ball felt a little lighter than the others, and of course it would be. They were hand cast, after all, not machine made. They wouldn’t all be precisely the same weight. The ball flew through the air, missing the last owl by inches.
Disgusted with herself, she tossed the slingshot down and got to her feet again.
“Ah well…that’s two for me, but you still have a chance to redeem yourself,” Marcom told her, and this time there was no question that he was grinning through his beard.
“It isn’t best of three?” she asked bitterly.
“Not exactly,” he said, scooping up the slingshot and heading back to the fountain. Emily followed him, and they began fishing out the stuffed owls.
“The last round is weighted, you could say. I won’t blame you if you don’t want to do it. I don’t expect it’s anything you’ve done before, but you’ve definitely got a talent for combat, no question, and mayhap I could teach you if you wanted to learn.” He began stuffing the dripping owls back into his pack.
“What is it?” she asked, curious now.
Marcom pulled two long swords and two gauntlets from the bag, watching Emily’s reaction closely. They looked like the sorts of things worn by knights of the realm, about to head out to slay dragons.
Strange. Emily had never thought much about swords or fencing before, and yet, at the sight of all that sharp metal glinting in the moonlight, she knew at once that she wanted to slip that gauntlet over her wrist and feel the weight of the sword in her hand.
She reached out and took one of each from him. The gauntlet was a shade too large for her, but it would do. She slipped it over her hand until it rested more or less comfortably on her forearm. She transferred the sword to that hand and took a few steps backward, swinging it gently and testing its weight. It was far heavier than a hockey stick, but it filled her with the same sense of energy. It made her feel strong. It made her feel powerful.
Marcom had been watching her curiously, but as her gaze found his again, he shrugged and slipped on his own gauntlet.
They faced off from one another, each holding their own sword protectively across their bodies. Emily sidled to the left, and Marcom matched her step for step.
“Are you just going to play shadow, or are we going to fence?” she taunted, and she saw him flash that smile again. This felt good. Not as good as being on her skates, maybe, but almost.
He jabbed his sword at her gently, not even really trying. She parried him easily, and a thrill of excitement shot through her at the sound of metal on metal. It felt like liquid fire was spreading through her, and the sensation picked her up and carried her to a place where there was only her body, her sword, and the battle before her.
She countered, then, herself, being far less gentle, and Marcom had to take a step back to buy himself time to adjust the grip on his own weapon.
Yes, this definitely felt right. It was not the same as wielding her stick—and yet it was the same somehow.
They began to fence in earnest, and Emily quickly discovered she could block many of his swings with her gauntlet and, by doing so, give herself more time to counter with her own thrusts.
Before long, the garden was ringing with the sound of their duel, and as the sun crested the high stone wall behind them, Emily felt that old thrum of electricity in her muscles once again. A low whine began in her head, and all at once, she knew.
She knew every move Marcom would make seconds before he did. She knew how to block every tactic he would employ to knock the sword from her hand and thus end the contest. She parried and thrust and swung, and she lost herself in the knowing—in the sheer joy of feeling it once more.
Sweat ran down her sides as they battled, and Emily never even noticed. Her whole world had shrunk to encompass only Marcom's flushed face, his flashing sword, and the old and dented gauntlet on his wrist.
At last, she saw her chance. She ducked beneath his next attack and stood up inside his guard, swinging sword and gauntlet up to collide with the fist in which he held his sword. Marcom grunted in surprise as the force of the impact jolted him, and Emily staggered back a few steps. She raised her sword in a defensive posture, but her attack had had its desired effect.
Stinging from the blow, Marcom’s hand had gone numb. His fingers relaxed, and his sword went clattering to the ground. Emily leapt forward and snatched it up in her free hand, hefting it aloft in triumph.
And that was when she saw them.
Standing around her and Marcom were the other girls, including Celine and Caireann. They were all gaping at her, staring with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Emily lowered the sword at once, feeling ridiculous. The electric joy that was the knowing drained from her, and she stood, sweating and panting in the morning sun.
Something flashed before her eyes, and the tinkle of metal hitting stone reached her ears. She looked down, and a gold coin rolled to a stop at her feet.
She looked around. Marcom was walking away from her toward the fountain and his pack.
“Wait,” she called. “Marcom…”
He turned to look at her, his hands buried deep in his pockets. He raised his eyebrows.
She walked over to him, offering him the swords. He took them without comment and helped her out of her gauntlet.
As the other girls dispersed, save Celine, who, after seeming to debate for a moment, started toward them, Marcom leaned close to her and said in a low voice, “Not exactly fair…but little is in battle.” He gave her a hard look, then smiled. “Well done, kid.”
Chapter Ten
“That was unbelievable, that was,” Celine breathed as she and Emily made their way back inside. “I never saw a girl fight like that! Could yeh teach me?”
Emily shrugged. The momentary thrill had drained away, and she was left feeling uneasy. She hadn’t intended for anyone to see her contest with Marcom. What had seemed like an innocent lark now felt like an unintended exhibition. Telling herself that it was no different than scoring goals in front of crowds of kids and parents had done nothing to allay her discomfort, and the feeling was compounded by the fact that she’d been so engrossed in the battle, she hadn’t noticed the audience they had attracted. She’d unwittingly revealed a part of herself that she’d hardly known existed; no matter what it felt like, wielding a sword was not the same thing as stealing or shooting a puck. It made her feel exposed.
The babble of conversation dropped perceptibly as they entered the apprentices’ dining room. The other girls stared openly as Emily and Celine took their usual places. Some of them wore looks of undisguised awe. Others seemed frankly curious. Josephine was eyeing her with contempt, but her wiry friend was examining Emily with a look of intense speculation. She looked li
ke the proverbial cat, contemplating the limitless ways to catch the canary.
Emily looked away, feeling her face burn. She tried to ignore them all and focus only on her porridge and tea. The gravity of all those gazes weighed on her.
“I hope yeh’ll teach me,” Celine said in a low voice, spooning porridge into her mouth hungrily. “Knowin’ ’ow to do some of them things would’ve been mighty useful a time or two.”
Emily squirmed and shot Celine a look that she hoped conveyed some measure of what she was feeling. Celine trailed off, and they ate in silence as, gradually, conversations resumed around them.
As Emily finished her breakfast, Caireann came back into the room, looking grim. She strode purposefully down the length of the table toward them, her hands clasped behind her back.
“Leave yer bowl,” she said to Emily. “Come with me.”
Emily’s heart missed a beat. Was she in trouble? There hadn’t been any rules against anything she’d done, as far as she could see, but perhaps being out at four in the morning without permission was pushing the boundaries.
She swung her legs over the bench, and Celine moved to follow her, clearly intending to stand by her. Caireann placed a hand on the smaller girl’s shoulder and shook her head, a faint smile touching her lips.
“Nay, stay here, child. There’s nothin’ yeh can do for yer friend.”
She turned to Emily and clasped her shoulder, guiding her from the room.
As the murmur of conversation fell away behind them, Emily felt her trepidation grow. If Marcom had known their little game could get her into trouble, why had he invited her at all?
At the bottom of the stairs, Caireann turned Emily around to face her. Though her mouth was pressed into a tight line, there was no anger in her expression. She looked resigned.
“What were yeh doin’ out there this mornin’?” she asked with a trace of exasperation.
“Marcom invited me.”
“And how the devil do yeh know Marcom, eh?”
“I saw him practicing his shot yesterday morning, and I went down to see what he was doing.”
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