by L D Inman
“When you say that,” Barklay said, with an affectionate humor that teased Douglas to keenness, “it usually means it’s yours.”
“I am as you find me.” Barklay was very close now; there was no need to speak above a whisper.
“I can see that,” Barklay said. His hands slid under the waist of Douglas’s tunic, and Douglas closed his eyes altogether.
~*~
Delayed by an early glut of dispatches from the com tower requiring his immediate attention, Barklay arrived in the mess hall to find a plurality of the students finished with their breakfast and waiting restlessly for the assembly to start. Some of them were visiting with others at other tables, while a few were making curious passes at the table set out with the release forms for the upcoming matches. A junior officer noticed his arrival and reached for the nearby bell hanging by the door; at its chime the chaos dislimned and everyone stood to attention.
Barklay waved them down, and went to collect his bowl of farina and a cup of strong tea. He found a seat on a bench next to Captain Marag, who had pushed aside his empty bowl and was answering a question from Lieutenant Fia about the upcoming general exam. When Fia had gone back to her table, Marag glanced companionably at his superior.
“All right, sir?”
“Fine,” Barklay said. “Busy morning, already.”
“Yes, sir.”
For the third time Barklay saw a cadet pass curiously by the signature table and slow long enough to glance at the papers. “Marag,” Barklay said, “do you think our traditions are translatable to the outside world?”
Marag wasn’t the ideal person to ask this question—he’d been lead instructor for a few years now and his exposure to the outside world was limited to the tac department at Amity Base—but he was sensible and possessed a pliant, resilient sense of humor. As Barklay watched, Marag paused with his cup in midair to think before answering.
“The courtesy behind them, may be. I hope so,” he said. “The traditions themselves, I would say are variable by necessity. They look different to me now than when I was a cadet—and I don’t think it’s just the distance of age. I think they shape themselves to the generation.”
As with the current aversion to foils, Marag didn’t say, but his glance seemed to imply that Barklay’s intervention in yesterday’s sparring court was on his mind.
“A Berenian Ryswyck, then,” Barklay pursued, “you think would operate differently.”
Marag looked startled. “Undoubtedly, sir,” he said, after a moment.
“Mm,” Barklay said, and left it at that.
“Ready for the assembly, sir?” Marag asked him.
“Yes, go on.” As Barklay snatched a few last bites of farina, Marag downed the last of his tea and stood up.
The release-form signing ceremony was a weekly staple of breakfast at Ryswyck, and was usually very short and simple, but it was imbued with the expectation of the future match it represented, and so the student body took a keener interest than the signing of papers seemed to warrant. After the orison and the announcements, everyone’s eyes turned to the table.
Marag called the four cadets and two junior officers by their full formal names, and they came to stand to either side of the table. Barklay let his gaze rest briefly on Douglas as he got to his feet. Douglas, with his quiet intelligent authority and passionate equilibrium, had a quality that surpassed even the most talented junior officers who had been special to Barklay over the years—but there was no real means of comparison, Barklay reminded himself, just the potential one carried and the circumstances one found oneself in.
He was up against a formidable opponent this week; Speir was a dedicated fighter and no doubt would put Douglas’s skill with the baton to a memorable test. Barklay, keenly observant of all his students, knew that she was shaping well and looked forward to seeing what she would do against her rota leader.
Marag began the ceremony by reading aloud the common provisions of the release: that each combatant would engage his or her opponent in the arena in the agreed format, that they would each abide by the law of courtesy and the conventions of the arena during combat, that they would accept the judgments applied by the senior official and anyone assisting that official, and that in the event of their incapacitation or death they would allow the Academy to activate their personal directives on file and inform their next-of-kin where appropriate.
Barklay, observing from behind the table, invited the students to review their own release forms for accuracy before signing them. They all bent intently over the pages, and Barklay amused himself with the thought of what must be the assembly’s view of their comrades’ asses pointed their direction. No one joked, however, not even Lieutenant Turnbull. Barklay sometimes wondered if the seriousness with which they all regarded the arena ought to be leavened a bit. After all—
“Hm,” Speir said. “I think I had better go ahead and change the terms of my directive.”
The others looked at her curiously, but Speir looked up only at Barklay and Marag. “I think I’ve still got my father listed as the executor. I need to give that task to his cousin.”
He had known Speir’s father was ill, but had not been aware his condition had deteriorated so far. “I’m sorry to hear that, Lieutenant,” Barklay said, and Speir offered him a sad little smile. “Marag, why don’t you go with Speir to the archive room after this, and help her arrange the alterations.”
Marag nodded.
“Not that I’ve much to execute in the event of my death,” Speir said cheerfully. “Just our flat in the capital and a little savings to donate.”
Cadet Grant looked up from her own form with an uneasy frown. “But nobody’s ever actually died in the arena, have they?”
“Oh yes,” Marag said. “It did happen once. I was a cadet at the time. A junior officer got his neck broken in an open-hand match.” That officer’s name was carved on the cenotaph in Ryswyck’s ash garden, though his ashes themselves had been sent home to the ash garden of his birthplace.
“Oh,” Grant said, with an attempt at nonchalance.
Douglas asked, “What happened to the survivor?”
Marag shrugged. “He got over it best he could. He’s serving in supply management between Amity and the capital, now.”
A very succinct way of putting it. Barklay remembered that year vividly: how Lieutenant Payton had wept inconsolably at the memorial rite, the sound mixing in the rain with the sound of the carillon’s dirge. How the junior officers had drawn around him as one, comforting and cajoling and finally attempting to force him back into sparring practice. How Barklay had entered and sat down at the next junior officer meeting, and the silence that had settled like a palpable thing over them all.
“Please allow me to note,” he had said to Payton, who sat apart, sullen and congealed in his grief, “that your fellow officers are right to want you to get up and go on again as much as you can. Resist them if you must, but do remember they have a point.” He turned to the others. “And the rest of you must remember that Payton is right to grieve as much as he wants. You are not here to learn how to avoid grieving.” His eye gathered them all in. “The day you can weep for your enemy as Payton weeps for his friend, is the day my work is perfected.” In the stunned silence that followed, he had risen and gone away.
Payton had carried his point; he finished his term as a junior officer but he never set foot in the arena complex again. And the student body of that year had gone on to produce some of Ryswyck’s most decorated, balanced, and celebrated alumni, Marag being only one example.
Barklay had often wished he could think of a way to teach every crop of Ryswyckians the same lesson without any actual loss of life.
Marag collected the signed papers. The combatants saluted him and Barklay sharply; Marag dismissed the assembly, and he and Speir began to wend their way out through the chaos that erupted. Barklay turned back to his place at the bench, to find that someone had thoughtfully collected his bowl and mug for him alre
ady.
He returned his gaze to the exodus of Ryswyckians. Their laughter and chatter echoed among the rafters of the hall, diminishing as they exited. The carillon in the tower sounded its call to classes.
Oh, my children, Barklay thought.
~*~
“Douglas,” Marag said— “a word, please.”
Douglas paused in the corridor and allowed Marag to draw him into the classroom where he taught supply management. The projection was still up with a schematic of GT lines for a dummy fort; Marag passed through it and retrieved a packet from his desk.
“If you would review these and distribute them to those in your section who are participating in the service course, it would save me a step and I’d be grateful.”
Douglas accepted the packet and leafed briefly through it. “Certainly.”
“The service course is still a few weeks away, so you may want to hold onto them for a few days, but I thought I’d give you the option of distributing them before your match.”
Douglas gave him a lopsided grin. “All this talk of death and dismemberment making you nervous, sir?”
“It pays to be circumspect,” was Marag’s dry response.
“Right.” Douglas paused. “I…didn’t know Speir’s father had died.”
“He hasn’t,” Marag said grimly. “He has one of the degenerative nerve disorders, Kilragh’s or Adelhaer’s, I can’t remember which one. It’s progressed to the palliative stage now, I understand, but he has veteran’s benefits, so he’s being well taken care of.”
Worse, then. “I’m sorry to hear,” Douglas murmured. “She hasn’t any other close family—siblings? Her mother—”
“Commanded the Beatrix fighting off the last invasion attempt. Lost with all souls at the bottom of the strait. I don’t think Speir has any siblings.”
Douglas had often envied only children their untrammeled solitude, but this was one case where envy was out of place. He thought of his own mother, living, breathing, and vigorous, and tried to imagine a life in which one’s mother was only an honored memory. He shook his head.
“I wouldn’t carry that pity into the arena with me, if I were you,” Marag warned him. “Speir’s no pushover.”
“You think I’m not aware?” Douglas grinned again. “She’s in my rota, you know.”
Marag smiled wryly back, but grew pensive again almost at once. “Her parents were navy,” he mused, “but she went army. Never even hesitated.”
“No mystery in that,” Douglas said.
Marag was a navy man, so maybe it did seem odd to him. He raised an eyebrow, waiting for the rest.
“Not much open-hand in the navy,” Douglas said, and a real smile sprang to Marag’s face. Just then the bells rang for the next class block, and Douglas backed out of Marag’s room to stay ahead of the rush. “See you at sparring court, sir.”
Douglas went down to his quarters to change and see if he could wedge open a spot on his schedule for personal training. One planned strategy was manifestly not going to be enough.
~*~
In the quiet dimness, Speir wrapped her wrists in tape with quick, practiced motions, then fitted on her headguard and fastened the clip. She was alone in the small changing room: the tradition was that the combatants entered the combat pit from opposite ends and left together.
She shrugged out of her changing robe; the skin left bare by her singlet prickled in the cool air. White singlet, black loose knit pants, soft-grip training slippers (which usually filled with prickly sawdust by the end of a match despite the tight elastic). Her baton waited, leaning against the wall.
Above her head, footsteps rumbled as the student body found seats in the ranked stalls; she could hear the excited thread of their voices, anticipating the spectacle. Almost time.
The sounds above changed; Speir didn’t hear the call to attention, but she heard the unified scrape of the students rising to their feet and the sudden silence before the chant began. She got up from the bench, took her baton, and took a parade-rest stance at the door to the combat pit. Her fingers curled around the smooth treated wood in a comfortable grip born of long use.
She closed her eyes and breathed in, and then out, in offering.
The latch clanked heavily, and the door opened. Speir opened her eyes to the bright vividness of the combat pit, and stepped forth.
Across from her, Douglas was coming out of the other changing room, dressed identically and carrying his own baton. Already the long staff looked like an organic extension of Douglas’s own reach. They stopped across from one another at the center mark and bowed formally, closed hand over heart; then as one they turned, stood to attention, and snapped a salute to where Barklay sat on the headmaster’s platform. Barklay rose and saluted them back.
From the judge’s perch, Marag said: “Is all well?”
“Yes, sir,” Douglas said, and Speir gave him a sharp nod.
“Then begin.” His whistle chirped, and the silence of the crowd began to break up in murmurs and calls.
Speir hardly heard them. Her whole living attention was driven into engagement with the approach of her opponent. She had watched Douglas in action before, and knew him to be a neat and graceful fighter: but that had been a side-on view, as it were. Now, he was coming for her, and before her eyes his habitual calm opened as a calyx to reveal a bright, controlled intensity before their batons had even touched. Her spirits rose in response.
They circled and tried a few passes, making contact once and then again; she had known he wouldn’t rush her, and would try to draw her before bringing his full energy to bear. She could give him what he wanted, and bring them to full engagement, but it would probably cost her a point or even the round. Very expensive, but worth it perhaps, if he was lulled into complacency by it. Without further hesitation, she attacked.
He eluded her, so neatly that for a split second she lost him altogether, and if it hadn’t been for her instinct to ground her baton one-handed behind her, he’d have had her feet from under her in the next split second. As it was, his blow jarred all along her baton and almost dislodged it from its plant in the sawdust; she snatched it back to a two-handed grip and whirled to ward off his next blow, skipping back two steps to give herself room.
But he kept coming. Her next moves were all by lightning defensive instinct; three, four blows she blocked before getting her feet planted to resume her offense. She got her center of gravity under his and threw him back a length with a horizontal thrust—the shouts from the crowd above rose in a roar—and lunged with the point of the baton right after, which he ducked just in time.
Right, better keep attacking. He planted his feet in turn and blocked two of her blows; the third grazed his shoulder before he could swing under the protection of his own baton, but he ignored the damage and wrested free of the engagement, his eyes bright in what she suspected was Douglas’s version of Stevens’s battle-grin.
Sensing a chance to win the round, Speir angled forward to aim a hard blow.
And found herself falling in a heavy impact that shook the ground and her with it, her baton torn from her hands. Weak sunlight from the dome lit the drifting sawdust—and then in the foreground, the business end of a baton heading at speed straight for her face.
She rolled, barely ahead of the blow, and then rolled again, and angled another roll to twist her feet in Douglas’s and bring him down. She scrambled up, shedding sawdust, and located her baton where it lay; by the time Douglas was up she had it again and was catching her breath.
Sawdust stuck all over to the sweat on her skin; the scratch on Douglas’s shoulder was similarly coated.
By tacit mutual consent they took a few seconds to regain their breath; and then his eyes narrowed with intent, and he attacked. His blow against her block jarred her whole frame and rattled her vision, but it did nothing to shake the joyful abandon singing through her pulses. She threw him off, curveted out of his range, and sailed back into offense with velocity, aiming under cover of
feint for his wounded shoulder.
This time she was thrown so far she skidded a furrow in the sawdust. She just managed to keep hold of her baton by one hand and dragged it back fast as a bar to his following stroke—and the whistle screamed. Douglas halted his momentum toward her, lowered his baton, and fell back to the mark.
Marag waited until Speir was on her feet before calling out: “Second throw. Round to Douglas.”
Speir scarcely heard the judgment. “How did you do that?” she demanded of Douglas in consternation.
He stood leaning on his baton, and his eyes were laughing. “You have a tell when you feint,” he said.
Oh do I? Well, time and past time to put an end to that.
Douglas read her thoughts. “I dare you to find it by the end of the match.”
“Don’t worry,” she said coolly.
“Do I look worried?”
He didn’t. Speir was charged to the fingertips with a mixture of fury and delight. She brought her hand up and saluted him with a flourish as hard as a blow. He received it with a graceful bow, no less pointed.
Marag watched to be sure they were ready, and opened the next round with his whistle.
The first round had taken the edge off their energy. For a few passes they merely circled one another, reading one another’s motions and the very air all around them. Finally, with an air of experiment, Douglas advanced to attack.
She parried each blow without trouble, working in a riposte when she could, which he blocked just as easily. In another moment he was going to dial up the intensity without warning, and Speir used the seconds of respite left to think furiously over her method of feinting.
She had made it a point of pride not to rely too much on one lead, either with a baton or in an open-hand contest, and the proof lay in how many opponents she had been able to take by surprise. So the tell probably wasn’t in the lead. Likewise with the direction of her gaze: she may have glanced once too many at Douglas’s bloodied shoulder, but he had clearly come into this match with knowledge gathered from observing her in the sparring court.