Ryswyck

by L D Inman

  Grant advanced without betraying her intent; on a hunch, Speir feinted once more to Grant’s right, sidestepped a swipe at her ankles, and put up her baton before Grant could raise hers in defense. Grant’s momentum brought her hard against the level bar of Speir’s baton—she twisted to keep her equilibrium, and Speir used that motion, catching Grant’s baton with her own and dragging it from her grip, then planting the end of her baton between Grant’s feet and tripping her as she twisted. Grant went down, and her baton fell with a padded thump over her legs. Not elegant, but effective. The whistle peeped.

  Grant got slowly to her feet, smiling ruefully, and accepted Speir’s salute with closed hand to her breast.

  There was a fusillade of whistle peeps, and the sparring circles with their observers dislimned. The cadets and junior officers who had come for training began to disperse, either toward their showers and classwork, or to the smaller rooms circling the arena for further personal training. Speir pulled off her headguard and padding, congratulated Grant on a good sparring session, and went to help her rota set the room to rights before heading to her own shower.

  Supper was going to taste so good. Speir strode at double pace, straight for her quarters as the bee flies—and was brought up short by Lieutenant Bell of D Rota coming the other direction.

  “Speir,” he said, “just a moment. You have a message arrived at the com tower. Marked from the capital, Dal Veterans’ Med House.”

  “Oh?” A curl of apprehension wound round Speir’s empty stomach. “When did it come in?”

  “Just an hour ago,” Bell said. “I’ve come off duty, so I decided to tell you on my way to supper. It should be there if you code in to the com-deck station.”

  “Thank you, Bell,” Speir said. “I appreciate it.”

  Bell nodded and went on his way.

  Speir drew a breath against a small qualm of nausea. Instead of continuing straight to her quarters, she detoured to the com-deck station at her end of the junior officers’ wing and closed the door to show it was occupied. She sat down at the console and coded herself in.

  The face that sprang to life on the projection was her father’s—not some Med House tech bearing bad news: Speir remembered suddenly to breathe.

  “My dear Nina,” he said. “I hope this finds you well and thriving.”

  In his prime Jamis Leam had been a broad-shouldered, broad-faced man with a laugh that put heart into anybody within earshot. Even after his return from active service, he had struck the observer as sturdy and hale, if quieter; Speir remembered riding on his shoulders through the echoing halls of the Naval Headquarters where he worked, both of them laughing every time they greeted a passerby.

  Now, in the recording, he was smaller and indrawn, his grey eyes not quite focused, his faded copper hair awkwardly combed; Speir could tell that it had been done for him, because her father never parted his hair like that.

  But his smile, though worn, was still true. “This is a bit late, I know, but I wanted to send you greetings on the occasion of your promotion. I’ve already worn everyone out talking about my daughter at Ryswyck, probably more even than I remember—but they’re well trained here. I’ll test their training talking about my daughter the officer at Ryswyck, I will.” His grin wrung Speir’s heart.

  Her father glanced down before him, seeming to move his hand though it was out of view. “What—oh, yes. I am very well today; there was a musical evening here at the house, with some lovely voices singing—spring songs, I believe. Yes. It was very nice. The food continues to be abysmal, but that’s the Navy for you.” That was one of her father’s jokes: the food was only really abysmal if he was silent about it.

  Yes; he was very well today. Speir knew that was why he had waited late before sending her a message, and why he’d chosen today to record it.

  After a few more stilted pleasantries, her father said: “If I don’t see you again before long, I’ll wish you a happy summer season now. Be sure and go out for a picnic—don’t spend all the sunlight on work, now.” He looked down again, and there was a soft noise like a note-sheet turned over. “Take good care, my dear, and congratulations again; I am so proud. I send all my love.”

  There the recording ended.

  Speir had to record a return message now; later she might lose her courage to smile back. So she keyed the recorder and returned her father a message in kind: thanks for his congratulations, a few dry anecdotes from the weeks since her promotion, a description of today’s sparring court, the morning’s meteorology exam. “And by the way, we are to expect a good summer, if the measurements are right, so I will be sure to take that picnic. If it works out that we can, I’ll take you with me,” as if it were not an open question whether Jamis Leam would have mind left to go anywhere by then; there was no telling how long this would drag out. “Be well,” she ended, and, “be good. I love you.”

  She marked the recording with the security code and logged it to be sent when the com tower retrieved messages.

  Briskly, she got up and returned at last to her quarters, where she peeled off her training tunic and knit trousers, flung them neatly over the edge of her laundry hamper, wrapped herself in her light bathrobe, and turned on the shower.

  There, in the doorway to the tiny bathroom, she came to a stop. She stood leaning against the doorjamb without turning on the light, the steam of the hot water pouring gently around her, and for a moment stayed unmoving.

  They had always known it would be like this. They had known since the day of the diagnosis. There was nothing to be surprised at, nothing to make her rear back in indignation. It was like a cosmic arbitrary fault.

  Speir shrugged out of her robe, wiped the tears from her cheeks, and washed off the residue under the needle-hot spray of the shower. She scrubbed quickly and then put her face directly under the water, letting its warmth course over her and down, for an extra minute before getting out.

  As she pinned up her wet hair in the little mirror over the sink, she met her own eye, looking up with her chin lowered: the expression serious but equable once more, presentable in the mess hall, certainly. All the same she dressed more slowly than usual, to give herself more time to reach full equilibrium. Linen shirt with black cravat, her clean gray slacks with their pressed crease, the matching tunic with its short lapel, high buttons, and red-lined snap-on hood (an entirely practical ornament). She smoothed the red-and-black lieutenant’s ribbons clipped to her epaulets, turned down the linen collar over that of the tunic, and slipped on her black shoes.

  There. All present and correct.

  Most of the junior officer class was still at supper when she arrived in the mess hall. She put her tray down at a table with some from her rota and several others, who were largely finished eating but lingered to chat with one another over their plates. After an exchange of greetings she tucked into her potato chowder, and found herself very hungry.

  “Speir,” came someone’s greeting. She looked up, spoon paused, to see Douglas taking his seat on the bench across from her. He had no tray; she assumed he had finished his supper already. She nodded back.

  “We’re scheduled together for next week’s match,” he said, without preamble. “Shall we choose a format now?”

  She had forgotten about the upcoming match. “All right,” she said.

  “I know you favor open-hand,” he said: the opening gambit in the delicate dance of format-choosing.

  “I do,” she said, taking another bite of chowder, “but I wouldn’t mind a little go with the baton for a change.” Douglas favored the baton, as she well knew.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather school me like you did Stevens?” Douglas said, with a sly half-grin. She grinned back.

  “Some of those bruises lasted for weeks,” she said. “I saw last winter you almost got him, yourself.”

  “Almost,” he admitted, “but not quite. But we were working in my preferred format.”

  “Yes,” Speir said, and added straightforwardly, �
�You saw my work this afternoon. Would I offer you a decent challenge at the baton?”

  He sized her up thoughtfully. “Unbated? Yes, I think so.”

  “Well, then—” But Speir was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Ahrens, who plunked himself down next to her on the bench.

  “Douglas,” he started, realized that he’d broken in on a conversation, and drew back. “Sorry,” he said to Speir.

  “No, no,” she said, “we were only choosing our format for next week. Go on, if you like.”

  He gave her a brief dip of the head and turned to Douglas again. “How may I mend my fault?” he said, earnestly.

  Douglas raised an eyebrow. “I think it’s mended already, Ahrens. Unless you had something in mind.”

  Ahrens shook his head. “I hadn’t. So I thought I’d better ask you.” Douglas had no answer for him, so Ahrens went on. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a careless and hateful thing to think and a discourteous thing to say, and that’s the kindest description of it. I knew better and I was a fool even so. I am sorry.”

  “Then it is mended,” Douglas said. “I’m satisfied. Let it be.”

  Ahrens drew an easier breath. “Thank you. You’re a credit to your mother’s name.”

  “I should have you meet my mother someday.” Douglas didn’t smile, but there was a mischievous light in his eyes.

  “As a cure for my ignorance. Should I be afraid?” Ahrens said, beginning to smile again.

  “Very,” Douglas said, and Ahrens laughed outright. He slapped the table and got up.

  “I look forward to it. Good night, then, Douglas. Thank you, Speir.” Ahrens directed a bow and a wave between them both, and went his way.

  Douglas watched him go, his face calm, and then turned back to her. “So, then. You were going to challenge me to combat with the baton?”

  “If you were agreeable,” Speir said.

  “I am.” He gave her a nod. “Shall I mark it on the schedule for us?”

  “Thank you,” she said, and Douglas got up.

  “Oh,” he added, “and Glenna wants to switch his night shift at the training-room desk. Would you be able to give him yours in exchange?”

  “When’s his?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Thanks. I’ll rewrite the schedule and tell him.” He offered her a dry half-grin, and went away.

  She would definitely have to observe Douglas closely during training this week.

  ~*~

  On her way back to her quarters, to put in a few hours’ study before hitting her bunk for the night, she met Barklay coming in from the tower quad. Barklay was one of those who never put his hood up; he never even troubled to acknowledge being wet, even when, as now, the drops sparkled on the top of his gray-sandy hair and glistened dark on his brows and temples. “Good evening, Lieutenant,” he said. “I hope I see you well.”

  “Very well, thank you, sir.”

  “I see you’re scheduled for a match next week.” Their ways lay together until she reached the door to the junior officers’ wing, and they fell into step easily.

  “Yes, sir; Douglas and I just worked out our format.”

  “Oh? What’s it to be?”

  “Batons.”

  Barklay gave an amused little snort. “I see. Well, don’t let him have it all his own way.”

  “I intend not to, sir,” Speir said.

  “Very good.”

  They were comfortably silent till they reached the place of parting, where Speir stopped and said, “I’ll say good night now, sir.”

  Barklay gave a small bow. “Rest well, Lieutenant.” Barklay’s courtesy was Ryswyck in apogee: a grace that approached kinship with a mere gesture. Speir felt comforted. She put her closed hand to her heart in thanks.

  “And you, sir.” She put her hand to the latch and went out into the cloister, where the rain had intensified to a curtain spilling heavily over the roof and down the eaves. It was dark, and the shaded lights of the arena sparkled across the quad.

  Speir paused between the doorways to listen to the rain. The spring smell was heavy and thick in the air, cool loam and leaves sharply unfurling. She breathed deeply of the air, and then passed through the door to her wing, to finish her day.

  ~*~

  Barklay lifted the tea basket out of his cup, let the few streaming drops fall from the bottom, and set it on its stand. Carrying his tea with him, a delicate cup in a soldier’s hand, he moved slowly to the window behind his desk, turning low the desk lamp on his way so that he could see out.

  His spacious office was ranked on the outer wall by tall windows dressed in drapes of sheer white—a shield for privacy that made the most of what daylight was available. In the low light their radiance was softened to a warm yellow depth beyond which the rain could be heard plashing its way down the stone channels set into the ground for it. Barklay nudged aside one of the drapes at its edge and sipped at his steaming tea.

  From his office windows he had an oblique view of the com tower, and in the other direction, the front gates of Ryswyck Academy. The lights of the com tower were steady in the rain, a downward flood lost in mist below the tower’s inadequate blackout louvres, and in reflection the drops sparkled faintly on the glass housings of the dormant gatepost lamps. The gates had stood for years, for other uses and other Ilonians, and now stood for Ryswyckians of the new generation, and looked to stand for years and generations more. It was the image of a security that Barklay himself did not feel.

  With his eyes on the com tower Barklay reflected on the day’s decision to accept Selkirk’s candidate. His senior officers had, predictably, taken the same view of the matter as Douglas: a bad idea, preferable only to open hostility with the Lord High Commander. All of them, even those who were not Ryswyckians themselves, had expressed reservations about the choice, but in the end had pledged to support and train their new colleague with all courtesy.

  No further would Barklay go to inoculate himself against any attempt to divide the loyalty of his students and officers. He would not have allowed himself to go so far, had not the antipathy emanating from the Council as Selkirk ascended become so obvious. Someday he was going to have to place Ryswyck in someone else’s hands. But those hands would be of his choosing. He would just have to find a way to outlast Selkirk’s enmity till then. Undefendedness, indeed.

  The watch was changing in the com tower: he could see Lieutenant Fia going out with her lantern to relieve her rota colleague. The water wheel of the life of Ryswyck turned quietly on its axis.

  Barklay swallowed the last of his tea, closed the drape on the night, and went to bed.

  2

  Speir got her opportunity to observe Douglas in action during the next training session. It was the day after a cadet match, so much of the early part of the session was devoted to re-enacting the various moves and blows observed in the arena, and amidst the heat of discussion the officers of A Rota were pointing out the various strategies employed, anatomizing and then synthesizing them for the benefit of the cadets.

  When they had beaten the stuffing out of that subject, Douglas looked at his watch. “Right,” he said, “we’ve time to work only one format before sparring court. Everyone get a headguard and a foil.”

  A few disgruntled noises rose from among the cadets, but they obeyed amiably enough. Even as Douglas put them through a merciless set of difficult exercises, Speir was surprised to see them continue docile…until she caught sight of Barklay from the corner of her eye, observing with arms crossed from an unobtrusive vantage point.

  Barklay’s presence, however, was not enough to inspire the students to a satisfactory performance. “A good number of us seem to be rusty,” Douglas observed. “No better day, then, to devote a whole sparring court to the foil. Get your sparring partner and make your queue.”

  This raised an outright protest. “Ah, no, Lieutenant Douglas—” “But I’ve an open-hand match next week—” and most audibly
, “Not a whole day of foils—”

  Douglas listened unmoved, waiting for his charges to reconcile themselves to the inevitable; but Barklay heaved an aggrieved sigh from the sidelines, and the murmur died altogether.

  “The poor maligned foil,” he said. “What will become of this generation? You are missing the beauties of the format.” He stepped through the students and over to the rack; chose a foil, tested its ball-tipped point against the floor, then slid it back in and chose another, with great deliberation.

  “It may help you,” Barklay went on, “to envision the foil as an elegant cousin of the combat knife. It is every bit as deadly in its way as a closed fist or a bit of wood. And since every woman and man in the Ilonian military is issued a combat knife, you actually stand some chance of needing it, when projectiles fail. Which is why I insist on Ryswyckians knowing the principles of its use.” Barklay found a foil to his liking and whipped it briefly through the air. The unsharp blade made a fine whistle, but Barklay was right: in his hand, it did look like a combat knife.

  “Perhaps it would be as well to give a demonstration.” Barklay had everybody’s undivided attention; cadets and junior officers alike had gathered around in interest. As they all watched, Barklay put down the foil and began to undo his tunic. He shrugged out of it and laid it neatly over the top of the rack, then removed his cravat and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt over strong forearms. As he was levering off his shoes, he looked up: his eyes scanned the gathering and lit on Douglas.

  “Lieutenant Douglas,” he said, “you are handy with a foil, are you not?”

  “Yes, sir,” Douglas said, with a resigned dryness that made several people smile. Obediently he stepped into the clear space made by the crowd and lifted a hand to catch a foil tossed to him grip-first. In Douglas’s hand, the foil looked like a small one-handed baton. Her interest further sharpened, Speir edged from behind the shoulder of a tall cadet to improve her view.